Divisiou  jij.^;x.^, 
S«etion 


JUL  1^1924 
THE    STORY       VA 


OF   THE 


EESUEEECTION  OF  CHEIST 


TOLD    ONCE   MORE 


WITH 

REMARKS   UPON   THE   CHARACTER   OF   CHRIST 
AND  THE  HISTORICAL   CLAIMS    OF   THE    FOUR    GOSPELS 


BY 

WILLIAM   H.    FUKNESS  D.D. 


PHILADELPHIA 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

1885 


Copyright,  1884,  by  J.  B,  Lippincott  &  Co. 


TO 

MY   BROTHERS 

IN 

THE   MINISTRY   OF   THE    CHRISTIAN   FAITH 
THESE  PAGES 

RESPECTFULLY   INSCRIBED. 


THE  STOHY  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 


It  is  now  more  than  fifty  years  ago  that,  in 
reading  the  accounts  of  the  most  extraordinary 
Event  in  the  history  of  Christ,  the  Event  upon 
which  the  Apostles  laid  the  greatest  stress,  the 
corner-stone  of  primitive  Christianity :  the  Re- 
appearance of  Christ  alive  after  death,  it  came 
to  me  that  what  the  guard  at  the  Sepulchre 
mistook  for  a  figure  alighting  from  heaven,  and 
the  women  believed  to  be  an  angel,  was  no 
other  than  Jesus  himself 

What  suggested  this  thought  was  a  particular 
in  the  Story,  slight  indeed,  but  it  struck  me  as 
very  significant :  the  special  mention  of  Peter  in 
the  message  sent  to  the  disciples  by  the  sup- 
posed angel,  "  Go  tell  his  disciples  and  Peter 
that  Jesus  is  risen."     I  seemed  to  hear  the  voice 

of  Jesus  in  this  singling  out  of  that  disciple, 
1*  6 


6  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

whose  last  act  had  been  to  swear  that  he  did 
not  know  him.  Although  thus  shamefully  dis- 
owned by  his  cowardly  friend,  Jesus  made  haste 
to  assure  him  that  the  past  was  not  remem- 
bered against  him,  that  he  was  not  disowned 
in  return  as  he  might  well  fear  that  he  would 
be.  To  the  fact  that  Jesus  had  risen,  no  angel 
could  testify  so  impressively,  it  seemed  to  me, 
as  this  message  to  Peter,  in  such  keeping  is  it 
with  the  greatness  of  mind  that  characterized 
Jesus. 

Once  possessed  with  the  idea  that  it  was  not 
an  angel  but  Jesus  himself  whom  the  guard  and 
the  women  saw,  I  seemed  to  have  found  the  key 
which  oj^ened  the  whole  Story  to  the  light,  the 
light  of  Truth  and  I^ature  illumining  it  to  its 
minutest  details,  all  unconsciously,  on  the  part 
of  the  narrators.  As  I  read  it  now,  overflowing 
as  it  is  with  evidence  of  its  truth  which  no  one 
thought  of  furnishing,  it  seems  to  have  written 
itself. 

The  more  I  have  pondered  it,  the  more  deeply 
have  I  been  impressed  by  its  wonderful  internal 
evidence.  If  the  actual  Ee-appearance  of  Jesus 
alive  in  the  flesh  to  Mary  is  not  proved,  then 


THE   STORY  OF   THE  RESURRECTION.  7 

nothing  in  the  Gospels   is   proved,  nothing  in 
all  the  world.     All  is  an  illusion. 

From  time  to  time,  in  various  publications,  I 
have  told  the  Story  as  I  read  it.  I  am  going  to 
tell  it  once  more,  not  only  because  there  are  cer- 
tain new  lights  to  throw  upon  it,  but  mainly  be- 
cause I  cannot  resist  its  inexhaustible  attraction. 
Is  it  only  a  fancy  that  I  am  gratifying  ?  or  is  it  a 
conviction  of  truth  ? 

There  are  certain  preliminary  considerations 
to  be  attended  to. 

1.  I  assume  the  entire  honesty  of  the  narra- 
tors. That  they  may  have  been  mistaken  as  to 
what  was  seen  and  heard,  I  readily  concede. 
But  that  they  meant  to  deceive,  or  to  tell  what 
they  did  not  believe  to  be  true,  I  find  no  shadow 
of  a  reason  for  suspecting. 

2.  It  is  equally  certain  that  between  the  four 
different  accounts  of  the  first  Appearance  of 
Jesus  there  is  no  collusion.  Their  glaring  dis- 
crepancies show  on  the  very  face  of  them  that 
they  are  four  independent  reports. 

3.  Although   I   consider   it  very  remarkable 


8  THE   STORY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

that  Jesus  is  never  described  as  appearing  in 
the  glory  with  which  I  cannot  but  think  he 
would  have  been  represented  as  arrayed,  were 
his  re-appearances  the  creations  of  the  imagi- 
nation inspired  by  the  love  of  the  marvellous,  I 
am  free  to  say  that  I  do  not  find  in  the  accounts 
of  the  subsequent  appearances  of  the  risen 
Christ,  the  same  striking  evidence  of  truth  that 
I  find  in  the  accounts  of  his  first  appearance. 
This  first  appearance,  however,  being  estab- 
lished, a  presumption  is  created  in  favor  of  the 
truth  of  the  after-appearances. 

4.  Believing  in  the  actual  Resurrection  of 
Christ,  I  freely  admit  that  questions  may  be  asked 
which  I  cannot  answer.  But  what  one  thing  is 
there  in  nature,  which,  even  when  set  forth  in 
the  full  blaze  of  the  most  advanced  Science,  does 
not  suggest  questions  for  which  we  have  no  solu- 
tion? Have  we  got  so  far  in  understanding 
everything  that  we  have  a  right  to  make  it  the 
condition  of  our  acceptance  of  any  extraordinary 
fact,  however  well  attested,  that  it  shall  leave 
nothing  unexplained?  Where  was  Jesus  after 
death  when  he  did  not  appear  to  his  disciples  ? 
What  was  the  mode  of  his  existence  then?     I 


THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  9 

cannot  even  conjecture.  Wliat  finally  became 
of  him  ?  The  common  belief  is  that  he  ascended 
visibly  into  the  sky.  But  there  is  not  in  the 
four  Gospels  a  word  that  necessitates  this  idea. 
!N'either  in  the  first  Gospel,  nor  in  the  fourth, 
and  these  happen  to  be  the  only  ones  ascribed 
to  personal  disciples  of  Christ,  is  anything  said 
of  a  final  disappearance.  The  second  Gospel, 
in  the  closing  verses,  which,  by  the  way,  are  of 
questionable  genuineness,  states  briefly  that 
Jesus  was  received  up  into  heaven,  and  sate  at 
the  right  hand  of  God.  Such  was  evidently  the 
belief.  We  are  not  required  to  understand  this 
brief  statement  as  meaning  to  say  that  he  was 
seen  taken  up  into  the  sky  and  seated  at  the 
right  hand  of  God.  The  third  Gospel  says  that 
he  "  led  his  disciples  out  as  far  as  Bethany,  and 
he  lifted  up  his  hands  and  blest  them,  and  while 
he  blest  them,  he  was  parted  from  them,  and 
carried  up  into  heaven.'^  In  the  book  of  the 
Acts  we  read  that  "  a  cloud  hid  him  from  sight, 
and  he  was  taken  up  into  heaven.^'  ^N'either  of 
these  accounts  necessarily  signifies  that  he  as- 
cended visibly.  When  he  disappeared  the  nat- 
ural conclusion  was  that  he  had  gone  to  heaven. 


10  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

The  language  of  these  histories  on  this  point 
is  significant.  It  tells  us  what  was  believed. 
But  there  is  not  a  word  going  to  show  that  they 
undertake  to  localize  the  place  of  the  departed. 
They  state  only  a  popular  belief. 

5.  Whatever  difficulties  are  involved  in  any 
event,  however  extraordinary  it  may  be,  we  are 
bound  to  accept  it,  when  it  rests  upon  irrefraga- 
ble evidence.  Such  is  the  case  with  the  Resur- 
rection of  Christ.  I  cannot  tell  what  his  con- 
dition was  after  he  rose  from  the  dead,  or  where 
he  was  when  not  seen,  or  whither  he  went.  It 
is  an  article  of  the  popular  creed,  by  the  way, 
that  he  descended  into  hell.  It  has  no  founda- 
tion in  the  Gospels.  If  I  were  under  the  neces- 
sity of  believing  either  that  he  ascended  or  de- 
scended, I  should  rather  incline  to  think  that  he 
went  down  to  save  the  lost ;  it  would  be  much 
more  like  him  than  to  go  up  into  heaven  to  be 
seated  on  a  throne  with  a  crown  of  gold  upon 
his  head.  The  crown  of  thorns  becomes  him 
better.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  that  he  re-ap- 
peared alive  after  death,  and  was  seen  and 
spoken  with,  the  evidence  has  put  it  out  of  my 
power  to  doubt.     To  borrow  words  ascribed  to 


THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  11 

an  eminent  scientist  in  relation  to  some  new 
phenomenon,  "I  do  not  say  it  is  possible,  I  say 
it  is  true." 

And  now,  as  I  relate  what  took  place,  on  the 
early  morning  of  the  third  day  after  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Jesus,  in  the  garden  where  his  body 
has  been  buried,  it  will  be  seen  with  what  in- 
imitable signatures  of  truth  the  original  narra- 
tives are  written  all  over,  not  by  mortal  hand, 
but  by  truth  and  nature. 

I  introduce  here  the  passages  in  the  Gospels 
from  which  the  Story  is  gathered : 

Matthew  xxviii,  1-10. 

In  the  end  of  the  sabbath,  as  it  began  to  dawn 
toward  the  first  day  of  the  week,  came  Mary 
Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary  to  see  the  sepul- 
chre. 

And,  behold,  there  was  a  great  earthquake : 
for  the  angel  of  the  Lord  descended  from 
heaven,  and  came  and  rolled  back  the  stone 
from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it. 


12  THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

His  countenance  was  like  lightning,  and  his 
raiment  white  as  snow  : 

And  for  fear  of  him  the  keepers  did  shake, 
and  became  as  dead  men. 

And  the  angel  answered  and  said  nnto  the 
women.  Fear  not  ye ;  for  I  know  that  ye  seek 
Jesus,  who  was  crucified. 

He  is  not  here :  for  he  is  risen,  as  he  said. 
Come,  see  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay. 

And  go  quickly,  and  tell  his  disciples  that  he 
is  risen  from  the  dead;  and,  behold,  he  goeth 
before  you  into  Galilee ;  there  shall  ye  see  him  : 
lo,  I  have  told  you. 

And  they  departed  quickly  from  the  sepul- 
chre with  fear  and  great  joy;  and  did  run  to 
bring  his  disciples  word. 

And  as  they  went  to  tell  his  disciples,  behold, 

Jesus  met  them,  saying.  All  hail.     And  they 

came  and  held  him  by  the  feet,  and  worshipped 

him. 

Mark  xvi,  1-10. 

And  when  the  sabbath  was  past,  Mary  Mag- 
dalene, and  Mary  the  mother  of  James,  and  Sa- 


THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  13 

lome,  had  bought  sweet  spices,  that  they  might 
come  and  anoint  him. 

And  very  early  in  the  morning  the  first  day 
of  the  week,  they  came  unto  the  sepulchre  at 
the  rising  of  the  sun. 

And  they  said  among  themselves,  Who  shall 
roll  us  away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sep- 
ulchre ? 

And  when  they  looked,  they  saw  that  the 
stone  was  rolled  away :  for  it  was  very  great. 

And  entering  into  the  sepulchre,  they  saw  a 
young  man  sitting  on  the  right  side,  clothed  in 
a  long  white  garment ;  and  they  were  affrighted. 

And  he  saith  unto  them.  Be  not  affrighted : 
Ye  seek  Jesus  of  l!Tazareth,  who  was  crucified : 
he  is  risen;  he  is  not  here:  behold  the  place 
where  they  laid  him. 

But  go  your  way,  tell  his  disciples  and  Peter 
that  he  goeth  before  you  into  Galilee:  there 
shall  ye  see  him,  as  he  said  unto  you. 

And  they  went  out  quickly,  and  fled  from  the 
sepulchre ;  for  they  trembled  and  were  amazed : 


14  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

neither  said  they  any  thing  to  any  man ;  for  they 
were  afraid. 

JSTow  when  Jesus  was  risen  early  the  first  day 
of  the  week,  he  appeared  first  to  Mary  Magda- 
lene, out  of  whom  he  had  cast  seven  devils. 

And  she  went  and  told  them  that  had  heen 
with  him,  as  they  mourned  and  wept. 

Luke  xxiv,  1-12. 

Now  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week,  very 
early  in  the  morning,  they  came  unto  the  sep- 
ulchre, bringing  the  spices  which  they  had  pre- 
pared, and  certain  others  with  them. 

And  they  found  the  stone  rolled  away  from 
the  sepulchre. 

And  they  entered  in,  and  found  not  the  body 
of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  were  much  per- 
plexed thereabout,  behold,  two  men  stood  by 
them  in  shining  garments  : 

And  as  they  were  afraid,  and  bowed  down 
their  faces  to  the  earth,  they  said  unto  them, 
Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead  ? 


THE   STOEY  OF   THE   EESUERECTION.  15 

He  is  not  here,  but  is  risen :  remember  how 
he  spake  unto  you  when  he  was  yet  in  Galilee, 

Saying,  The  Son  of  man  must  be  delivered 
into  the  hands  of  sinful  men,  and  be  crucified, 
and  the  third  day  rise  again. 

And  they  remembered  his  words, 

And  returned  from  the  sepulchre,  and  told  all 
these  things  unto  the  eleven,  and  to  all  the  rest. 

It  was  Mary  Magdalene,  and  Joanna,  and 
Mary  the  mother  of  James,  and  other  women 
that  were  with  them,  who  told  these  things  unto 
the  apostles. 

And  their  words  seemed  to  them  as  idle  tales, 
and  they  believed  them  not. 

Then  arose  Peter,  and  ran  unto  the  sepul- 
chre; and  stooping  down,  he  beheld  the  linen 
clothes  laid  by  themselves,  and  departed,  won- 
dering in  himself  at  that  which  was  come  to 
pass. 

John  XX,  1-18. 

The  first  day  of  the  week  cometh  Mary  Mag- 
dalene early,  when  it  was  yet  dark,  unto  the 


16  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

sepulchre,  and  seeth  the  stone  taken  away  from 
the  sepulchre. 

Then  she  runneth,  and  cometh  to  Simon 
Peter,  and  to  the  other  disciple,  whom  Jesus 
loved,  and  saith  unto  them.  They  have  taken 
away  the  Lord  out  of  the  sepulchre,  and  we 
know  not  where  they  have  laid  him. 

Peter  therefore  went  forth,  and  that  other  dis- 
ciple, and  came  to  the  sepulchre. 

So  they  ran  both  together :  and  the  other  dis- 
ciple did  outrun  Peter,  and  came  first  to  the 
sepulchre. 

And  he  stooping  down,  and  looking  in,  saw 
the  linen  clothes  lying ;  yet  went  he  not  in. 

Then  cometh  Simon  Peter  following  him, 
and  went  into  the  sepulchre,  and  seeth  the  linen 
clothes  lie. 

And  the  napkin,  that  was  about  his  head,  not 
lying  with  the  linen  clothes,  but  wrapped  to- 
gether in  a  place  by  itself. 

Then  went  in  also  that  other  disciple,  which 
came  first  to  the  sepulchre,  and  he  saw,  and  be- 
lieved. 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  17 

For  as  yet  they  knew  not  the  scripture,  that 
he  must  rise  again  from  the  dead. 

Then  the  disciples  went  away  again  unto  their 
own  home. 

But  Mary  stood  without  at  the  sepulchre 
weeping:  and  as  she  wept,  she  stooped  down, 
and  looked  into  the  sepulchre, 

And  seeth  two  angels  in  white  sitting,  the  one 
at  the  head,  and  the  other  at  the  feet,  where  the 
body  of  Jesus  had  lain. 

And  they  say  unto  her,  Woman,  why  weepest 
thou  ?  She  saith  unto  them,  Because  they  have 
taken  away  my  Lord,  and  I  know  not  where 
they  have  laid  him. 

And  when  she  had  thus  said,  she  turned  her- 
self back,  and  saw  Jesus  standing,  and  knew  not 
that  it  was  Jesus. 

Jesus  saith  unto  her.  Woman,  why  weepest 

thou?  whom  seekest  thou?    She,  supposing  him 

to  be  the  gardener,  saith  unto  him.  Sir,  if  thou 

have  borne  him  hence,  tell  me  where  thou  hast 

laid  him,  and  I  will  take  him  away. 
2* 


18  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

Jesus  saith  unto  lier,  Mary.  She  turned  her- 
self, and  saith  unto  him,  Rabboni ;  which  is  to 
say.  Master. 

Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Touch  me  not ;  for  I  am 
not  yet  ascended  to  my  Father:  but  go  to  my 
brethren,  and  say  unto  them,  I  ascend  unto 
my  Father,  and  your  Father;  and  to  my  God, 
and  your  God. 

Mary  Magdalene  came  and  told  the  disciples 
that  she  had  seen  the  Lord,  and  that  he  had 
spoken  these  things  unto  her. 

It  was  on  the  sixth  day  of  the  week,  the  day 
before  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  that  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  took  place.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
clay,  certain  friends  of  his,  not  of  the  number  of 
his  personal  disciples,  with  the  permission  of  the 
Roman  governor,  took  down  the  body  from  the 
Cross,  and,  wrapping  it,  according  to  Jewish 
custom,  in  a  white  shroud  of  linen,  laid  it  in  a 
new  tomb,  in  which  no  one  had  been  laid  be- 
fore, in  a  neighboring  garden. 

The  sun  of  that  darkened  day  of  blood  set  and 
the  night  passed,  and  the  sun  rose  again,  and  the 


THE  STORY  OF   THE   EESUERECTION.  19 

Sabbath  stillness  of  the  seventh  day  rested  over 
the  sepulchre,  and  the  garden,  and  the  city. 

The  disciples  of  the  Crucified,  plunged  in  de- 
spair, mourned,  and  wept.  Overwhelmed  by  the 
one  inexorable  fact  that  he  was  dead,  for  whom 
they  had  forsaken  their  homes,  and  from  whom 
they  had  fondly  expected  to  receive  a  hundred- 
fold in  return,  they  were  lost  in  thick  darkness. 
What  heart  had  they  to  turn  for  light  to  the 
future,  or  to  the  past?  He  whom  they  had 
looked  up  to  as  about  to  appear  in  all  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  Messiah  and  to  make  them 
judges  in  Israel,  had  suddenly  vanished,  covered 
with  public  shame, — dead,  buried.  What  cared 
they, — it  could  only  aggravate  the  anguish  of 
their  ruined  hopes, — to  recall  anything  he  had 
specially  said  or  promised  ?  The  great  Promise, 
upon  which  they  had  been  depending  so  im- 
plicitly, lay  crushed  in  the  sepulchre.  All  was 
over.  There  was  nothing  left  for  them  but  to 
go  heart-broken  home  to  Galilee.  Only  some 
women,  who  had  come  with  Jesus  to  the  great 
city,  agreed  to  go  early  the  next  morning  to  his 
tomb  and  pay  a  last  poor  tribute  of  afl:ection  to 
the  dead. 


20  THE   STOEY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

While  the  disciples  were  thus  stunned,  stupe- 
fied by  grief,  the  Priests,  having  compassed  the 
destruction  of  Jesus,  as  they  believed,  under 
every  circumstance  of  shame  and  horror,  exulted 
in  their  triumph.  'Now  they  breathed  freely.  The 
man  who  had  been  such  a  terror  to  them,  whose 
bold  speech  had  lashed  them  into  a  frenzy  of 
fear  and  hatred,  was  no  more.  They  trusted 
that  they  had  heard  the  last  of  him.  To  make 
all  sure,  however,  and  that  there  might  be  no 
possibility  of  any  further  imposture,  they  ob- 
tained from  Pilate  a  guard  to  keep  watch  at  the 
tomb.  Certain  things  said  by  Jesus,  as  we  may 
suppose,  had  come  to  their  ears,  through  Judas 
possibly, — he  had  sold  himself  to  them; — or,  as 
Jesus  had  been  rumored  to  have  called  the  dead 
to  life,  and  as  they  regarded  him  as  one  of  the 
pretended  Messiahs  likely  to  appear  at  that  time 
of  excited  popular  expectation,  they  naturally 
conceived  the  suspicion  that  his  adherents  might 
plot  some  further  imposition, — steal  the  body, 
and  then  give  out  that  he  had  come  to  life.  So 
they  took  the  precaution  of  having  the  sepulchre 
watched. 

Thus  the  Sabbath  passed  undisturbed  by  the 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  21 

tumultuous  crowds  that  had  gathered  around 
the  man  from  Galilee  wherever  and  whenever 
he  appeared  in  public. 

But,  as  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the 
week  was  breaking,  what  strange  story  was  that 
which  came  startling  the  Chief  Priests?  Into 
the  city  and  to  the  house  of  the  High  Priest 
rushed  the  guard  who  had  been  stationed  at  the 
tomb,  with  ^vild,  afirighted  looks,  in  breathless 
accents  declaring  that  there  had  been  a  great 
earthquake,  and  that  the  stone  that  closed  the 
tomb  had  been  rolled  away  by  a  figure  that 
came  down  from  heaven  with  eyes  like  light- 
ning and  raiment  white  as  snow. 

I  pause  here  for  a  moment  over  this  report 
of  the  guard.  Strauss  rejects  the  whole  story 
of  a  watch  set  over  the  sepulchre  as  a  fabrica- 
tion designed  to  help  prove  the  Eesurrection  of 
Jesus. 

That  there  may  be  mistakes,  great  mistakes, 
indeed,  and  exaggerations  in  the  Gospels,  I  con- 
cede. It  would  be  strange  if  there  were  not, 
since  events  so  exciting  as  those  are  which  they 
record  could  hardly  fail  to  excite  the  imagina- 
tion and  interfere  with  the  power  of  accurate 


22  THE  STORY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

observation.  Indeed,  mistakes  and  exaggerations 
are  not  only  to  be  looked  for,  they  are  important 
witnesses  to  the  substantial  truth  of  the  narra- 
tive. When  extraordinary  events  occur,  they 
are  always  accompanied  by  false  rumors  and  ex- 
aggerated statements.  But  the  obviously  artless 
character  of  the  Gospels  forbids  us  to  charge 
them  with  such  deliberate  fabrications  as  Strauss 
and  E,enan  do  not  hesitate  to  attribute  to  them. 

Was  the  story  told  by  the  watch  invented  in 
order  to  help  prove  the  Eesurrection  of  Jesus  ? 
It  makes  no  mention  of  him.  It  does  not  say 
that  any  one  was  seen  to  come  from  the  tomb. 
Thus  at  the  very  point  at  which  it  should  fulfil 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  alleged  that  it  was 
invented,  it  falls  silent  and  entirely  fails.  If  in- 
vented to  support  the  Eesurrection  of  Jesus,  it 
should  have  made  the  guard  report  that  some 
one  entered  the  sepulchre  or  came  out  of  it.  As 
it  is,  if  invented  with  a  fraudulent  design,  it 
would  really  seem  to  have  been  fabricated  in 
the  interest  of  the  Priests  rather  than  of  the 
disciples  of  Jesus.  It  certainly  gave  plausibility 
to  the  explanation  which  the  Priests  found  of 
the  affair,  an  explanation  so  plausible  that  it 
long  gained  currency  among  the  Jews. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  23 

The  report  of  the  guard  evidently  struck  the 
Priests  as  monstrous  and  incredible.  Had  it 
been  ever  so  convincing  of  the  fact  that  Jesus 
had  returned  to  life,  they  would  not  have  cred- 
ited it.  They  had  gone  too  far ;  they  were  com- 
mitted to  the  denial  of  its  truth.  As  it  was,  the 
men  who  told  this  strange  story  were  plainly 
under  the  exaggerating  influence  of  mortal  ter- 
ror. Their  looks,  their  accents,  and  the  story 
itself  bore  every  mark  of  extreme  fright.  Had 
there  been  "a  great  earthquake,"  it  would  surely 
have  been  felt  in  the  city.  The  natural  and 
strong  suspicion  was  that  a  trick  had  been 
played  upon  these  men.  Holding  Jesus  to  be 
an  impostor,  hav'ng  no  faith  in  him,  or  in  his 
adherents,  the  Priests  soon  found  a  solution  of 
the  matter :  There  had  been,  a  plot  to  steal  the 
body,  and  the  watch  had  been  scared  away  that 
it  might  be  carried  off,  and  it  could  be  given  out 
that  Jesus  had  come  to  life  again.  The  guard, 
the  Priests  had  no  doubt,  had  fallen  asleep. 
They  may  have  done  so,  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  likely.  Ignorant  and  superstitious,  as  they, 
doubtless,  were,  they  were  discharging  the  un- 
accustomed  office   of  watching  by  night,  at  a 


24  THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

grave,  and  at  the  grave  of  a  man  rumored  to 
have  possessed  mysterious  powers;  there  was 
everything  to  keep  them  awake.  To  the  Priests 
it  seemed  certain  that  the  men  must  have  slum- 
bered, and  that  a  trick  had  been  played  upon 
them  to  scare  them  away  from  the  spot. 

Such  was  the  Priests'  solution  of  what  had 
occurred.  And  this,  substantially,  was  the  story 
which  they  bribed  the  guard  to  tell,  promising 
them  immunity  from  punishment  for  sleeping 
on  their  watch,  a  promise  which  the  Priests  were 
confident  they  could  fulfil,  as  they  would  make 
no  complaint  of  the  men  to  Pilate,  and  it  was 
not  a  military  duty  the  men  had  been  set  to  dis- 
charge, nor  had  their  alleged  negligence  had 
any  result  of  any  consequence  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Roman  authorities.  Of  course  they  were  not 
required  to  say  that  they  had  been  frightened 
away  from  the  sepulchre.  Strauss  says  it  is  in- 
credible that  the  Sanhedrim  should  all  agree  to 
induce  the  guard  to  tell  a  falsehood.  And  it 
certainly  is  incredible.  But  it  was  not  what 
the  Priests  regarded  as  a  falsehood,  but  what, 
from  their  point  of  view,  they  honestly  believed 
to  be  the  truth,  that  they  are  reported  to  have 
urged  the  men  to  tell. 


THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  25 

The  question  now  comes :  What  was  it  that 
actually  happened  at  the  sepulchre  ?  Something 
must  have  occurred  to  terrify  the  guard  and 
cause  them  to  flee  from  the  spot  with  such  an 
extraordinary  storj^ 

One  circumstance,  which  the  guard  reported, 
we  may  credit  without  hesitation,  namely,  that 
the  stone  was  removed  from  the  sepulchre.  So 
it  was  found  by  the  women  who  came  to  the 
spot  shortly  afterwards. 

As  for  the  rest,  the  report  of  the  guard  be- 
trays the  magnifying  influence  of  extreme  terror. 
When  men  are  frightened  out  of  their  senses, 
imagination  rules  the  hour,  and  the  simplest  in- 
cidents are  exaggerated  into  preternatural  phe- 
nomena. Had  there  been  a  great  earthquake, 
the  women,  who  were  on  their  way  to  the  place, 
would  have  felt  it,  and  so  would  the  Priests  in 
the  neighboring  city.  But  neither  of  these  ap- 
pear to  have  been  aware  of  it. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  flrst  particular 
that  is  mentioned  is  the  earthquake.  This  it 
was  that  threw  the  guard  into  a  paroxysm  of 
affi'ight.  At  that  dark,  still,  lonely  hour,  as  the 
guard  naturally  would  be  standing,  sitting,  or 


26  THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

reclining,  with  their  backs  to  the  tomb,  watching 
the  approaches  to  the  spot,  they  as  naturally 
would  be  greatly  startled  by  even  a  slight,  sudden 
agitation  of  the  ground.  It  could  seem  to  them 
nothing  less  than  the  shock  of  an  earthquake.  I 
cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  this  jarring  of 
the  ground  was  caused  by  the  removal  of  the 
stone.*  The  stone,  used  as  a  rude  door  to  the 
sepulchre,  was,  I  imagine,  more  or  less  of  a  slab- 
like description.  As  it  fell  away  from  its  place, 
it  caused  a  more  or  less  violent  concussion  of  the 
ground.  If  the  stone  were  removed  by  some  one 
standing  outside  of  the  tomb,  he  would  have 
been  seen  by  the  guard,  before  the  stone  fell 
down.  I  believe,  therefore,  it  was  pushed  away 
from  within  the  sepulchre,  which,  obviously,  could 
be  done  far  more  easily  than  it  could  be  moved 
from  without.  The  guard,  startled  by  the  jar 
thus  caused,  turned  instinctively  to  the  sepul- 

*  Dr.  K.  von  Eritsch,  of  Halle,  expresses  the  opinion  that 
the  causes  of  earthquakes  are  often  much  slighter  than  is 
commonly  supposed,  and  supports  it  by  facts.  He  states  that 
quite  feeble  forces  may  produce  agitations  of  the  ground 
that  will  be  felt  at  considerable  distances. — Popular  Science 
Monthly^  No.  1,  vol.  xxi,  p.  144. 


THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  27 

chre.  And  tliere!  a  figure  all  in  white  appeared! 
The  apparition,  caught  sight  of  as  suddenly  as 
the  agitation  of  the  earth  was  felt,  completed 
their  fright,  and  was  nothing  less,  to  eyes  dilated 
by  mortal  terror,  than  a  preternatural  figure  sud- 
denly descended  from  heaven.  "What  else  could 
it  be  but  Jesus  himself  in  his  long,  white  shroud? 

As  it  was  Jesus  who  removed  the  stone,  we 
see  why  the  earthquake  is  first  mentioned.  The 
jarring  of  the  earth  was  felt  before  the  figure 
appeared.  Had  the  stone  been  moved  by  any 
one  outside  of  the  sepulchre,  he  would  have  been 
seen  before  the  earthquake  was  felt,  and  then, 
it  may  be  a  question  whether  the  guard  would 
have  felt  the  jarring  of  the  ground  caused  by  the 
stone,  and  then  too  there  would  have  been  no 
mention  of  an  earthquake.  As  it  was,  it  was 
the  fright,  caused  by  the  agitation  of  the  ground, 
that  invested  the  figure  that  appeared  with  un- 
earthly attributes. 

The  guard  reported  that  the  figure  from 
heaven,  having  removed  the  stone,  ''•sat  upon 
iC  If,  instead  of  an  angel,  it  was  Jesus  who 
removed  the  stone,  to  seat  himself  was  a  natural 
position   after    the    confinement    in   the   sepul- 


28  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

chre   and   the    exertion    of    pushing    away   the 
stone. 

The  marvels  that  attended  his  previous  career 
are  marked  by  a  severe  simplicity  strikingly  in 
contrast  with  the  exaggerations  of  fictions  born 
of  the  imagination.  There  was  nothing  done 
by  him  merely  to  gratify  the  love  of  the  wonder- 
ful. There  never  was  any  more  power  put  forth 
than  was  absolutely  necessary.  When  he  recalled 
to  life  the  young  daughter  of  Jairus,  she  was  not  at 
once  restored  to  perfect  strength,  as  would  have 
been  represented  were  the  story  the  creation  of 
the  imagination,  which,  once  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  passion  for  the  wonderful,  scorns  all 
limitations.  Jesus  directed  that  food  should 
immediately  be  given  her.  Lazarus  also  needed 
instant  assistance.  Once,  when  the  case  of  a 
blind  man  appealed  to  his  compassion,  as  the 
man's  infirmity  prevented  his  being  influenced 
by  the  commanding  eye  and  air  of  Jesus,  the 
restoration  of  his  sight  was,  at  the  first  word  of 
Jesus,  only  partial.  He  was  able  to  distinguish 
men,  only  by  their  walking,  from  trees.  Then, 
as  is  related,  Jesus  spat  on  the  ground  and  made 
clay  with  his  saliva  and  applied  it  to  the  eyes  of 


THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  29 

the  blind  man,  not  because  there  was  any  medi- 
cinal virtue  in  the  application,  but  because  it 
established  a  communication  between  the  will 
of  Jesus  and  the  faith  of  the  man  which  it  stim- 
ulated into  sanative  action.  Again,  the  demo- 
niac of  Gadara  did  not  at  once  become  sane  at 
the  bidding  of  Jesus.  He  became  calm,  but  he 
still  had  the  insane  idea  that  a  troop  of  foul 
spirits  had  possession  of  him,  and  he  wanted 
ocular  proof  that  they  had  left  him;  hence  his 
insane  request  that  the  spirits  should  be  sent 
into  the  swine.  We  read  that  at  I^azareth,  where 
he  was  brought  up,  Jesus  did  not  many  mighty 
works,  "  because  of  their  unbelief"  Had  not 
faith  been  an  essential  factor  in  the  marvels  that 
he  wrought,  the  unbelief  of  the  JSTazarenes  was  a 
reason  why  he  should,  not  w^hy  he  should  not, 
have  done  mighty  works  there.  But,  faith  being 
indispensable,  he  could  work  no  wonders  in  a 
community  that  looked  with  contempt,  born  of 
familiarity,  upon  the  son  of  the  carpenter  Jo- 
seph. They  could  not  believe  that  he  w^as,  or 
could  do,  anything  extraordinary. 

That  Jesus,  then,  should  rest  after  the  exer- 
tion of  pushing  away  the  stone  from  the  sepul- 
8* 


30  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

chre  is  a  supposition  not  so  fanciful  as  it  may  at 
first  sight  seem ;  it  is  thus  in  keeping  with  other 
incidents  of  the  history. 

About  the  same  hour  on  that  eventful  morn- 
ing that  this  extraordinary  report  was  made  to 
the  Priests,  intelligence  of  a  like  startling  char- 
acter broke  with  like  suddenness  upon  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus. 

Mary  of  Magdalene  came  running,  breathless 
with  alarm,  to  Peter  and  John,  telling,  in  hur- 
ried accents,  how  she  and  some  others  had  gone 
out  very  early,  before  daybreak,  to  the  sepulchre, 
taking  spices  with  them  to  lay  out  the  body  of 
Jesus  with  more  care  and  decency  than  the  hur- 
ried burial  on  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath  had  al- 
lowed, and  how,  when  they  came  in  sight  of 
the  tomb,  it  was  open ! — the  stone  was  removed ! 
— the  tomb  had  been  rifled ! — the  body  was 
gone  ! 

This  last  particular,  Mary's  hasty  inference 
from  the  fact  that  the  tomb  was  open,  shows  that 
no  shadow  of  a  suspicion  had  crossed  her  mind 
that  Jesus  had  risen.  Her  one  engrossing  thought 
was  that  he  was  lying  dead,  the  victim  of  the  bit- 
terest hatred ;  and  she  rushed  to  the  conclusion 


THE   STOKY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  31 

that  Ms  cruel  enemies  had  pursued  him  even  in 
death,  and  violated  the  sanctity  of  the  grave,  not 
suffering  his  poor  mangled  remains  to  rest  in 
peace  where  friendly  hands  had  laid  them. 

At  this  strange  report,  Peter  and  John,  fol- 
lowed by  Mary,  ran  to  the  sepulchre  to  see  if  it 
were  indeed  so. 

Hardly  had  they  gone,  when  the  women, 
whom  Mary  had  left  at  the  sepulchre,  came 
rushing  in,  in  a  transport  of  wonder  and  joy, 
telling  that,  after  she  left  them,  they  went  into 
the  tomb,  and  there,  to  their  unutterable  amaze- 
ment, was  "a  young  man  in  a  long  white  gar- 
menC^  So  he  appeared  to  them  at  first  sight. 
But  when  he  spoke  to  them,  and  showed  that 
he  knew  what  they  came  for,  to  see  the  dead 
body  of  Jesus,  and  told  them  it  was  not  there, 
that  he  had  risen,  and  when  he  bade  them  go 
and  tell  his  disciples  and  Peter  that  Jesus  was 
living  again,  they  bowed  down  before  him  with 
wonder  and  great  joy,  believing  him  to  be  no 
less  than  an  angel  from  heaven. 

Who  could  this  person  in  "a  loiig  white  gar- 
menf'  be  but  Jesus,  wrapt  in  his  shroud,  who, 
upon  becoming   aware  of  the  approach  of  the 


32  THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

women,  had,  after  the  departure  of  the  guard, 
retired  into  the  tomb,  not  being  prepared  then 
to  make  himself  known  ? 

That  it  was  he  and  no  other  is  indicated  by 
one  of  those  slight  microscopic  particulars  that 
reveal  the  inimitable  hand  of  truth.* 

One  of  the  Gospels  states  that  the  women 
found  two  angels  in  the  sepulchre.  ISTow  if  it 
was  Jesus  whom  they  saw  and  who  spoke  to 
them,  then  he  must  have  taken  off  the  white 
linen  that  had  been  wrapt  around  his  head,  and 
it  lay  apart,  near  where  his  head  had  rested. 

*  "  When  there  is  a  detail  of  many  minute  particulars,  and 
when  to  these  we  apply  a  close,  and,  as  it  may  be  said,  micro- 
scopic examination,  the  contrast  between  truth  and  fiction 
will  generally  be  very  striking.  Something  like  this  is  the 
difference  between  the  works  of  nature  and  art.  An  arti- 
ficial flower  may  be  so  skilfully  made  as  at  first  sight  to 
deceive  the  eye,  even  of  a  botanist ;  but  Avhen  that  and  a 
natural  flower  are  both  exposed  to  the  solar  microscope,  we 
at  once  perceive  the  contrast.  The  petals  of  the  natural 
flower,  when  viewed  with  the  microscope,  appear  more  deli- 
cately veined  even  than  when  viewed  by  the  naked  eye, 
while  those  of  the  artificial  flower  look  like  coarse  canvas." 
— Miscellaneous  Re^nains  frovi  the  Cotmyiowplace  Book  of 
Richard  Whately,  D.D.  London,  1865. 


THE   STOKY  OF   THE   RESUKRECTION.  33 

This  white  cloth  it  was,  that  one  or  more  of  the 
women,  with  eyes  dilated  with  overwhelming 
amazement,  mistook,  in  the  dim  light  of  the 
sepulchre,  for  another  angel  in  white.  "Objects 
imperfectly  seen,"  as  Dr.  Johnson  has  remarked, 
"  take  form  from  the  imagination." 

Had  there  really  been  two  angels  in  the  sep- 
ulchre, would  not  the  one  who  spoke  have 
spoken  for  the  other  and  said,  "  Lo !  we  have 
told  you,"  and  not  "  Lo  !  /  have  told  you,"  as 
is  reported  ? 

The  first  and  second  Gospels  vary  but  very 
slightly  in  their  reports  of  what  the  person, 
whom  the  women  found  in  the  sepulchre,  said 
to  them.  The  third  Gospel  reports  him  as  say- 
ing further,  ''Remember  how  he  spake  unto  you 
when  he  teas  yet  in  Galilee,  saying,  The  Son  of 
man  must  he  delivered  into  the  hands  of  sinfid  men 
and  be  crucified,  and  the  third  day  rise  again.  And 
they  remembered  his  wordsJ^  As  there  is  nothing 
in  the  Gospels  that  evinces  any  studied  accuracy 
of  statement,  that  these  words  are  not  found  in 
the  other  Gospels  is  no  decisive  evidence  that 
they  were  not  uttered.  Suppose  the  person  in 
the  sepulchre  was  Jesus  himself,  he  might,  nat- 


34  THE  STOEY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

urally  enough,  remind  the  women  of  what  he 
had  once  said.  But  as  he  desired  them  to  go 
away  and  to  go  ^^  quickly,"  and  therefore  would 
not  be  likely  to  delay  them,  save  by  the  brief- 
est word  or  two,  my  own  impression  is  that, 
upon  being  told  that  Jesus  had  risen,  one  or 
more  of  the  women,  before  they  reached  the 
city,  suddenly  recollected  that  Jesus  had  said 
that  he  would  rise  again,  and  then  when  they 
told  his  disciples  that  he  had  risen,  and  the 
startling  intelligence  was  received  as  an  '  idle 
tale/  they  reminded  the  disciples  of  what  Jesus 
had  once  said,  that  he  would  rise  again,  and,  in 
their  hurry  and  eagerness,  they  told  all  in  a 
breath,  what  the  alleged  angel  said  and  what 
they  remembered  that  Jesus  had  said,  mixing 
the  words  of  the  angels  that  they  had  heard,  and 
the  saying  of  Jesus  that  they  recollected,  so  that 
the  latter  became  mixed  up  with  the  former, 
and  all  together  were  understood  by  some  to 
have  been  said  by  the  supposed  angel. 

Upon  the  departure  of  the  women,  Jesus 
quitted  the  sepulchre.  There  was  no  one  there, 
when,  shortly  after,  Peter  and  John  reached  the 
place. 


THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  35 

The  women  had  hardly  ended  their  wonderful 
story,  when  Peter  and  John  returned  to  the  city 
and  mournfully  reported  that  they  had  found 
it  even  so  as  Mary  had  said:  the  sepulchre 
was  empty,  the  body  was  not  there.  They  had 
seen  no  angels.  The  only  strange  thing  was 
that  the  grave-clothes  were  still  there,  part  in 
one  place,  part  in  another,  a  circumstance  easily 
accounted  for  upon  the  supposition  that  it  was 
Jesus  himself  whom  the  women  had  seen.  He 
did  not  put  off  all  the  grave-clothes  at  once,  and 
consequently  they  were  not  left  lying  all  to- 
gether. His  body,  I  imagine,  had  been  placed 
with  his  head  farthest  into  the  interior  of  the 
tomb.  When  he  awoke  to  life,  he  divested  him- 
self first,  as  I  have  just  had  occasion  to  note,  of 
the  cloth  that  was  wound  around  his  head,*  and 
it  lay  by  itself,  apart  from  the  remainder  of  the 
shroud,  which  was  not  put  off  until  after  an  in- 
terval. 

What  other  clothes  Jesus  found,  we  can  only 

*  That  it  was  the  custom  to  wind  a  separate  piece  of  cloth 
around  the  head  of  the  dead  appears  from  the  account  of  the 
Kaising  of  Lazarus,  whose  face  it  is  said  '■'■was  hound  about 
with  a  napkin." 


36  THE   STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

conjecture.  The  loose,  flowing  garments  of  those 
times  needed  no  special  fitting.  It  may  be  that 
the  gardener,  or  some  of  the  persons  who  had 
assisted  at  the  burial  of  Jesus,  had  provided 
themselves  for  that  office  with  garments,  which, 
becoming  ceremonially  unclean  b}^  contact  with 
a  dead  body,  and  unfit  to  be  worn  on  the  Sab- 
bath then  at  hand,  were  left  in  the  sepulchre  or 
near  it.  Or,  did  the  watch,  in  their  hasty  flight, 
leave  some  garments  behind  them  ?  But  this  is, 
perhaps,  inquiring  too  curiously,  where  all  must 
needs  be  conjecture. 

When  Peter  and  John  left  the  place,  they  said 
nothing  to  Mary.  Their  silence  intimated  as 
plainly  as  any  words  that  they  had  found  it  as 
she  had  said.     The  body  was  not  there. 

They  left  her  standing  at  the  entrance  of  the 
tomb  weeping.  She  stooped  down  and  looked 
into  it.  As  Peter  and  John  had  been  surprised 
at  finding  the  grave-clothes,  part  in  one  place 
and  part  in  another,  so  Mar}^,  who  had  not 
so  near  a  view  of  them  as  they  had,  caught 
sight  but  only  dimly,  through  her  tears  and  the 
darkness  of  the  sepulchre,  of  two  white  objects. 
They  surprised  her,  but  before  she  had  time  to 


THE   STORY  OF   THE    RESURRECTION.  37 

make  out  what  they  were,  there  came  a  voice 
asking  why  she  wept.  Knowing  not,  for  an  in- 
stant, whence  it  came,  she  answered  it,  but  be- 
fore she  finished  speaking,  she  became  aware  of 
some  one  approaching  behind  her.  She  turned 
only  partly  round,  and  saw  through  her  tear- 
bedimmed  eyes  a  man  whom  she  took  for  the 
gardener.  I  think  her  impression  at  that  in- 
stant was,  and  it  was  correct,  that  it  was  he  who 
had  just  asked  her  why  she  was  weeping,  for, 
upon  his  repeating  the  question,  and  not  hav- 
ing heard  her  answer,  adding  (how  naturally !)  a 
further  question,  "  Whom  are  you  seeking?^'  she 
replied  as  if  she  thought  that  he  must  have 
beard  what  she  had  just  said.  She  begged  him, 
if  he  had  removed  the  body,  to  tell  her  where  it 
was.  Whereupon  this  person,  whom,  supposing 
him  to  be  the  gardener,  she  only  glanced  at 
through  eyes  suffused  with  tears,  called  her  by 
name,  "  Mary !"  Then  she  "-  turned  herself" 
round, — there  was  that  in  the  simple  utterance 
of  her  name  that  went  like  lightning  to  her  in- 
most soul,  transporting  her  out  of  herself.  No 
voice  but  one  could  have  so  thrilled  her  whole 

being.     She  gazed  at  him  as  if  she  would  look 

4 


38  THE   STORY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

him  through  and  through, — the  whole  life  of  her 
in  her  eyes.  It  was  He !  It  was  the  adored  Mas- 
ter himself!  She  gasped  out,  "Rahboni!"  and 
threw  herself  at  his  feet,  grasping  them  in  a 
convulsive,  rapturous  embrace. 

It  was  not  until  she  returned  to  the  city  and 
heard  that  the  other  women  had  seen,  as  they 
declared,  two  angels  in  the  sepulchre,  that,  with 
characteristic  pirecipitancy,  she  rushed  to  the 
confident  conclusion  that  she  too  had  seen  those 
angels,  that  the  two  white  appearances  that  she 
caught  sight  of  when  she  stooped  down  and 
looked  into  the  sepulchre,  and  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  at  the  time,  were  those  very 
angels  whom  the  other  women  had  seen,  and  that 
they  it  was  who  put  to  her  that  first  question 
which  came  she  knew  not  at  the  moment  w^hence, 
although  at  the  time  she  did  not  dream  of  their 
being  angels,  for  she  turned  her  back  upon  them 
to  talk  with  a  common  man.  I:Tever  would  she 
have  done  so,  had  she  then  thought  that  there 
were  angels  in  the  sepulchre. 

And  here  I  pause  over  the  perfect  simplicity, 
I  might  almost  say,  the  homeliness,  of  this  most 
wonderful    Event,   the   Re-appearance  of  Jesus 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  39 

alive  to  Mary.  There  was  no  sudden  apparition, 
no  sudden  vanishing.  He  stood  before  her  in 
the  simple  garb  of  an  ordinary  man.  She  saw 
him  before  she  recognized  him.  She  clasped  his 
knees  and  knew  that  it  was  he,  in  flesh  and  blood. 

"We  have  seen  how,  in  the  case  of  the  guard 
and  of  the  women,  imagination  was  on  the  alert 
to  glorify  the  simplest  things  and  transfigure 
them  with  its  exaggerating  accidents.  Mary  was 
as  ready  as  they  to  become  the  dupe  of  the  coin- 
age of  her  brain,  as  is  evident  from  her  rushing 
to  the  belief  that  the  white  objects  that  she 
dimly  caught  sight  of  in  the  sepulchre  were 
angels.  ISTever  would  she  have  represented  so 
great  a  personage  as  the  Messiah  was  held  to  be, 
as  returning  from  the  invisible  world  of  the  dead 
in  so  humble  a  form  that  she  mistook  him  for  a 
gardener,  had  her  imagination,  quick  as  it  was, 
had  the  slightest  opportunity  to  act.  Her  recog- 
nition of  him  in  this  lowly  garb  was  too  instan- 
taneous, too  overwhelming.  At  the  very  in- 
stant that  she  was  weeping  over  him  as  dead, 
he  stands  directly  before  her,  calls  her  by  name, 
and  she  falls  at  his  feet. 

Eead  any  accounts,  such  as  the  Roman  Cath- 


40  THE  STORY  OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

olic  Church  abounds  in,  of  alleo;ed  visions  of  the 
Virgin  or  of  this  or  that  saint.  Are  not  those 
apparitions  always  arrayed  in  the  glorified  cos- 
tume of  preconceived  ideas  of  visitants  from  the 
world  of  spirits,  decorated  with  the  symbols  of 
the  Church  ?  And  thus,  in  depicting  this  very 
event  of  the  Resurrection,  Art  portrays  Christ  as 
ascending  from  the  sepulchre  radiating  light,  and 
surrounded  by  clouds  of  glory.  And  thus  also, 
were  the  Grospel  narratives  pure  fabrications,  the 
offspring  of  the  love  of  the  marvellous,  would 
they  have  represented  his  Re-appearance  alive. 

There  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  account  of  Mary's 
recognition  of  Jesus  which  strikes  me  as  not 
without  significance.  I  have  remarked  upon  it 
before.  I  cannot  refrain  from  a  notice  of  it  here. 
I  refer  to  her  exclamation,  "Rabboni!"  Why 
was  this  Hebrew  word  preserved  ?  It  is  per- 
fectly translatable,  and  is  immediately  trans- 
lated. There  must  have  been  a  reason  for  it. 
And  the  reason  was,  I  conceive,  that  this  iden- 
tical articulation,  being  the  only  audible  sign  of 
her  overpowering  transport,  bursting  involun- 
tarily from  her  inmost  heart,  had  an  emphasis,  a 
world  of  feeling  in  it,  which  no  word  of  a  for- 


THE  STORY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  41 

eign  tongue  could  convey.  Any  other  word 
would  have  sounded  cold  and  expressionless, 
wholly  unequal  to  the  occasion.  This  original 
exclamation  is  like  the  "•  Et  tu,  Brute P'  of  Ceesar, 
which  Shakespeare,  with  the  intuition  of  genius, 
does  not  translate. 

There  are  other  instances  in  the  Gospels,  in 
which  the  very  words  uttered  are  preserved,  and 
for  similar  reasons.  "  Taliiha  citmiF'^  said  Jesus 
to  the  child  that,  at  this  command,  instantly 
awoke  to  life.  '•'  Ephphatha  P''  was  his  word  in 
restoring  a  blind  man  to  sight.  These  words 
are  immediately  translated,  but,  followed  as  they 
were  by  the  most  wonderful  effects,  they  sounded 
in  the  ears  of  those  present  like  powerful  magical 
formulas.  They  had  a  ring  of  power  which 
could  belong  to  no  other  articulations.  Those 
who  heard  them  and  witnessed  the  effects  that 
followed  upon  their  utterance  must  needs  report 
the  identical  words  that  came  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus.  So  the  Apostle  Paul  uses,  more  than 
once,  the  word  ^' Abba,"  as  in  Rom.  viii,  15, 
"  We  have  received  the  spirit  of  adoption, 
whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father !"  No  word  of 
any  other  language,  though  it  had  precisely  the 


42  THE  STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

same  meaning,  could  have  for  the  Apostle  the 
tender,  endearing  significance  of  this  brief  word 
in  his  mother  tongue. 

Upon  recognizing  Jesus,  Mary,  as  we  have 
seen,  held  him  by  his  feet.  She  clung  to  them 
as  if  she  would  never  let  him  go;  so  we  may 
infer  from  what  he  is  reported  to  have  said  to 
her :  "  Touch  me  not ^  for  I  have  not  yet  ascended  to 
my  Father ;  hut  go  to  my  brothers  and  tell  them  I 
ascend  unto  my  Father  and  their  Father,  and  to  my 
God  and  their  God.''^ 

It  seems  to  be  thought  that  there  is  some 
mysterious  meaning  in  these  words  of  his,  as  if 
they  forbade  Mary  to  come  near  him,  or  so 
much  as  to  touch  him.  But  as  she  afterwards, 
in  all  probability,  appealed  to  the  fact  of  having 
held  him  by  his  feet,  and  as  this  fact  was  dwelt 
upon  as  proof  positive  of  the  sense  of  touch  that 
it  was  no  spectre  that  she  had  seen,  but  real 
flesh  and  blood,  may  we  not  surmise  that  this 
circumstance  has  caused  what  Jesus  said  to 
Mary  to  be  reported,  not  in  his  exact  words,  but 
in  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  them,  and 
that  what  he  said,  and  all  that  he  meant  to  say, 
was  that  she  was  not  to  stop  to  embrace  him 


THE  STORY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  43 

then, — there  would  be  other  opportunities  of 
seeing^  him, — she  was  to  2:0  and  tell  his  brothers 
that  he  was  still  living  and  about  to  go  to  his 
Father  and  theirs  ? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  understand  from  his 
manner  of  expressing  himself  on  this  occasion 
that  he  intended  to  say  that  he  was  about  to  go 
up  literally  into  the  sky.  It  was  his  purpose  to 
tell,  not  how  he  was  going,  but  only  that  he  was 
about  to  go  to  the  Father,  and  he  used  the  pop- 
ular mode  of  speaking  in  which  departure  from 
the  present  state  of  being  is  described. 

The  passage  in  the  fourth  Gospel  which  re- 
lates the  first  appearance  of  Jesus  tells  how  John 
outran  Peter  and  waited  for  him  at  the  sepul- 
chre. This  minuteness  of  detail  respecting  the 
movements  of  Peter  and  John  on  that  occasion 
is  readily  explained  when  we  take  the  narrative 
as  coming  directly  from  John  himself,  upon 
whose  mind  the  slightest  incidents  of  that  event- 
ful morning  were  stamped  indelibly.  It  is  not 
necessary,  however,  to  suppose  that  he  wrote  it 
with  his  own  hand.  I  do  not  think  that  he  did. 
Throughout   all   the    Gospels,  the  disciples  are 


44  THE  STORY  OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

always  spoken  of  in  the  third  person.  This  is 
one  great  reason  why  I  incHne  to  believe  that 
the  Gospels,  composed  of  records  previously 
existing  from  the  earliest  time,  had  for  their  au- 
thors, persons  outside  of  the  circle  of  the  imme- 
diate disciples  of  Christ,  persons  who  were  either 
eye  and  ear  witnesses  of  the  things  they  relate, 
or  obtained  their  information,  as  Luke  states 
(Luke  i,  1),  from  "eye-witnesses  and  ministers 
of  the  word."  Cultivated  writers,  like  Julius 
Caesar,  for  example,  may  write  about  themselves 
in  the  third  person.  But  this  is  an  art  of  liter- 
ary composition  quite  beyond  such  unlettered 
men  as  the  first  disciples  were.  The  opinion 
which  I  entertain,  for  my  own  satisfaction,  con- 
cerning the  fourth  Gospel  is,  that  it  is  the  work 
of  a  highly  spiritually-minded  friend  of  John's, 
much  younger  than  he,  who  held  John  in  the 
greatest  veneration,  and  obtained  from  him  the 
materials  of  this  Gospel,  not  always  restricting 
himself  closely  to  John's  communications,  but 
sometimes  amplifying  them  to  bring  out  more 
fully  what  he  conceived  to  be  their  meaning,* 

*  A  striking  instance  of  the  freedom  with  which  the  author 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  introduces  his  own  comments  and  ampli- 


THE  STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  45 

but  still  confining  himself  substantially  to  what 
he  received  from  the  venerable  Apostle,  and 
very  closely  in  the  case  of  facts,  and  ending  by 
giving  the  whole  credit  of  his  work  to  John,  not 
to  obtain  for  it  an  authority  which  it  would  not 
otherwise  possess,  but  because  he  felt  he  had 
derived  it  all  from  his  aged  friend. 

Certain  discrepancies  with  the  Story  of  the 
first  Ee-appearance  of  Christ,  as  it  has  now  been 
told,  remain  to  be  noticed.  They  are  found  in 
the  first  Gospel. 

While  the  three  other  Gospels  agree  in  stating 
that  the  stone  was  removed  from  the  sepulchre 
before  the  women  reached  the  place,  the  first 
Gospel  gives  us  to  understand  that  the  women 
were  present  when  the  stone  was  rolled  away. 

The  apparent  contradiction  vanishes  when  we 
consider  how  natural  it  is,  when  anything  ex- 

fications  may  be  found  in  John  iii,  11-21,  incl.  In  the  im- 
mortal chapters  of  this  Gospel,  beginning  with  the  fourteenth 
and  ending  with  the  seventeenth,  I  recognize,  not  the  precise 
words  of  Christ,  but  the  inspiration  of  his  Spirit,  which,  in 
its  expression,  is  colored  and  freely  amplified  in  passing 
through  a  mind  eminently  fitted  to  receive  it. 


46  THE  STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

traordinary  happens,  for  the  first  excited  reporters 
of  it,  in  the  eager  and  hurried  state  of  mind 
which  it  causes,  to  crowd  together  all  the  most 
wonderful  particulars  without  regard  to  the  order 
of  time,  so  that  things  are  represented  as  occur- 
ring coincidently  that  occurred  successively  and 
at  intervals.  The  story,  as  it  is  told  in  the  first 
Gospel,  is  an  instance  of  this  precipitation.  It 
reads  like  a  first  oral  report  written  down.  The 
chief  startling  incidents  are  told  all  at  once,  in  a 
breath. 

Thus  viewed,  the  credibility  of  what  is  related 
to  have  taken  place  is  not  impaired,  it  is  cor- 
roborated, as  there  is  undesignedly  exhibited  the 
excited  state  of  mind  which  the  extraordinary 
event  related  must  have  produced. 

Again.  The  first  Gospel  states  that  Jesus  first 
appeared  to  all  the  women  who  went  together  to 
the  sepulchre,  and  who,  it  says,  met  him  as  they 
were  returning  to  the  city.  We  need  have  no 
hesitation  in  pronouncing  this  a  mistake,  since 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  naturally  it  was  fallen  into. 
As  Mary  and  the  women  all  went  together  to 
the  sepulchre,  and  as  all  but  Mar}^  rushed  back, 
declaring  that  Jesus  was  alive,  and  were  quickly 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  47 

followed  by  Mary  affirming  that  she  had  seen 
him  and  held  him  by  his  feet,  could  anything 
be  more  natural  than  that,  in  the  intense  excite- 
ment of  the  hour,  the  impression  should  be  re- 
ceived by  some  that  all  the  women  had  seen  him 
and  held  him  by  his  feet  ? 

In  the  foregoing  exposition  of  the  Accounts 
of  the  Re-appearance  of  Christ  alive  in  the  gar- 
den where  his  body  had  been  laid,  I  am  not 
aware  of  having  had  recourse,  for  the  sake  of 
harmonising  them,  to  any  forced  or  far-fetched 
considerations.  I  have  sought  to  read  them  by 
the  light  of  familiar  principles  and  well-known 
experiences  of  our  nature. 

That  the  dead  body  of  Christ  had  disappeared, 
that  a  living  person  was  found  there,  in  and  near 
the  sepulchre,  and  that  that  person  was  no  other 
than  Jesus,  I  hold  to  be  established  by  evidence 
hardly  less  extraordinary  than  the  great  Event 
itself.  It  is  evidence  entirely  undesigned,  evi- 
dence that  he  was  seen  by  a  number  of  persons 
without  being  recognized,  and  seen  by  the 
woman,  to  whom  he  made  himself  known  be- 
fore she  recognized  him;  the  evidence,  not  of 


48  THE   STOEY   OF   THE   RESURRECTION. 

men,  but  of  God  himself  speaking  through  the 
natural  emotions  of  the  persons  present  on  the 
spot,  all  unconsciously  on  their  part.  Stronger 
evidence  I  can  neither  desire  nor  imagine. 

Holding:  the  Eesurrection  of  Christ  to  be  an 
actual  fact,  must  we  pronounce  it  a  miracle  ?  A 
miracle  it  is  in  the  original  sense  of  the  word, 
which  is  simply  "  a  wonder."  It  is  a  great  mir- 
acle in  this  understanding  of  the  term.  But 
was  it  a  miracle  in  the  popular  sense  ?  Was  it 
an  event  out  of  the  established  course  of  na- 
ture ?  As,  with  all  our  boasted  knowledge,  we 
are  acquainted  only  with  the  surfaces  of  things, 
and  cannot  pretend  to  know  all  the  ways  of  na- 
ture, what  authority  have  we  for  pronouncing  it 
a  miracle  in  the  sense  of  a  violation  of  those 
ways?  Are  we  not  rather  bound  to  conclude 
that  it  took  place  in  perfect  consistency  with  the 
Divine  ways,  in  obedience  to  some  law  of  nature 
unknown  ?  And  yet  not  unknown.  Has  not 
Christ  himself,  in  the  mighty  power  which  he 
ascribed  to  Faith  in  terms  the  most  emphatic, 
revealed  the  law,  of  the  operation  of  which,  the 
marvels  that  he  wrought  and  his  own  return  to 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  49 

life  after  death  are  decisive  instances :  the  law  of 
the  supremacy  of  Spirit  over  Matter?  Accept- 
ing this  view  of  the  case,  we  can  hardly  fail  to 
see  that  all  the  ado  that  has  been  made  about 
miracles  is  out  of  place.  On  that  score,  we  have 
afflicted  our  souls  in  vain. 

Living,  dying,  and  rising  from  the  dead  in 
profoundest  harmony  with  the  Divine  Will  and 
order,  through  a  faith,  identified  with  his  inmost 
personal  consciousness,  in  the  Infinite  One  dwell- 
ing in  him,  and  in  all  things,  animate  and  in- 
animate, Christ  is  our  fullest  Revelation  of  God, 
and  of  the  Divine  life  in  the  soul  of  man. 

His  Resurrection  was  justified  by  the  power 
with  which  it  wrought.  To  change  those  poor 
men,  who  first  put  faith  in  him,  into  saints  and 
martyrs,  through  whom  the  world  was  to  be 
revolutionised,  it  was  worth  while  for  the  great- 
est of  the  sons  of  men  to  awake  from  the  deep 
slumber  of  death,  and  show  himself  to  them  and 
inspire  them  with  a  faith  in  things  unseen  such 
as  was  never  felt  before.  Had  he  not  done  so, 
his  memory  would  have  faded  away  from  the 
world  into  an  insubstantial  dream  of  the  Past, 


50  THE  STORY   OF  THE   RESURRECTION. 

casting  no  light  of  sanctity  upon  the  Present,  nor 
of  hope  upon  the  Future.  His  disciples  would 
have  gone  mourning  back  to  their  boats  and 
nets  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  But  as  it  was,  as- 
sured beyond  the  shadow  of  a  misgiving  that  he 
who  had  been  all  in  all  to  them,  for  whom  they 
had  forsaken  all  else,  was  still  living,  with  a 
courage  that  princes  and  all  the  powers  of 
Church  and  State  could  not  daunt,  those  humble 
men  went  forth  and  published  their  faith  in  the 
Risen  Christ,  sealing  that  faith  with  their  blood. 
This  was  the  one  Fact,  upon  the  truth  of  which 
they  staked  life  and  all  that  makes  life  dear : 
that  Christ  had  risen  from  the  dead,  and  was 
still  living.  "If,"  said  the  Pharisee,  who  was 
early  converted  to  their  faith,  and  who  became 
the  foremost  of  them,  "if  thou  shalt  confess  with 
thy  mouth,"  that  is,  speak  boldly  out  and  at  the 
peril  of  thy  life  avow  thy  faith  in  Christ  as  a 
man  from  God,  "  and  shalt  believe  in  thine  heart 
that  God  hath  raised  him  from  the  dead,  thou 
shalt  be  saved," — saved  from  the  fear  of  man 
and  the  fear  of  death.  And  this  is  salvation  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word. 

But  it  was  not  only  at  the  first,  in  one  gener- 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   EESURRECTION.  51 

ation  only,  that  the  fact  of  the  Kesurrection  of 
Christ  was  of  this  vital  importance.  Its  power 
was  not  then  exhausted.  Never  has  it  been  of 
deeper  interest  than  at  this  hour,  when  Science 
has  become  invested,  in  the  popular  mind,  with 
extraordinary  authority,  and  would  fain  bring 
the  world  to  the  worship  of  matter  and  uncon- 
scious physical  force.  Thank  Heaven  for  him 
who  appeared  in  all  the  might  of  the  Spirit,  for 
"  the  power  of  his  Resurrection,"  the  crowning 
evidence  of  the  supremacy  of  mind  over  matter ! 


REMARKS 

UPON 

THE  OHARAOTEE  OF  OHEIST 

AND 

THE  HISTORICAL  CLAIMS  OF  THE 
FOUR  GOSPELS. 


EEMARKS. 


In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  told  again  the 
Story  of  the  First  Re-appearance  of  Christ  after 
death.  I  do  not  know  that  the  same  view  of  it 
has  ever  been  taken  by  any  one  else.  I  have  no 
expectation  that  it  will  meet  with  any  extensive 
acceptance.  It  is  the  exceeding  interest  of  the 
Story  that  has  moved  me  to  this  repetition.  I 
am  betraying  perhaps  the  infirmity  of  Age.  As 
in  our  first  childhood  we  love  to  hear,  so  in  our 
second,  we  love  to  tell,  the  same  stories  over  and 
over  again. 

THE   DECLINE   OF   FAITH. 

If,  in  regard  to  studies  of  this  class,  there  is, 

among  the  liberally  disposed,  one  characteristic 

of  the  present  time  more  marked  than  another, 

it  is  the  Decline  of  Faith,  not  only  in  the  great 

Christian  fact  of  the  Eesurrection  of  Christ,  but 

55 


56  THE  CHAEACTER  OF  CHRIST. 

in  the  historical  authority  of  the  Gospels  alto- 
gether. 

Theodore  Parker — all  honor  to  his  memory! 
— said  long  ago  in  his  first  and  chief  work,  "A 
Discourse  of  Religion,'^  a  work  that  has  had  great 
influence  in  setting  the  present  fashion  of  think- 
ing, that  we  have  no  warrant  for  the  truth  of  any 
incident  related  in  the  Gospels  beyond  the  fact 
that  Jesus  was  persecuted  and  suffered  a  violent 
death,  which,  although  Mr  Parker  says  it  lay 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  would  now  in  these 
sceptical  times,  I  suspect,  be  called  in  question, 
were  there  not  on  record  the  explicit  testimony 
of  the  Roman  historian  to  the  crucifixion  of 
Christ. 

That  faith  in  historical  Christianity  is  on  the 
decline  among  us  needs  no  special  proof.  The 
fact  is  patent.  It  is  in  all  the  air.  The  appear- 
ance of  a  denomination  called  Free  Religionists 
is  evidence  sufficient.  Those,  who  are  ranked 
under  this  title,  are  understood  to  relinquish  the 
Christian  name,  and  to  hold  that,  for  the  superi- 
ority claimed  for  Christianity  over  all  other  re- 
ligions, there  is  no  historical  foundation,  that  it 
has  the  same  legendary  origin  with  the  other  re- 


THE  DECLINE  OF   FAITH.  57 

ligions  that  have  sprung  up  in  the  far  East.  As 
historical  records,  the  Gospels  are  accounted  of 
very  little  value.  Having  thus  fallen,  histori- 
cally, into  disrepute,  regarded  as  collections  of 
mere  fables  or  myths,  they  are  ceasing  to  be 
studied,  or  even  referred  to,  apart  from  their 
moral  precepts,  with  any  particular  interest. 

As  such  ways  of  thinking  are  becoming  com- 
mon, I  cannot  but  see  and  lament  that  the  true 
character  and  contents  of  these  Writinscs  are 
very  imperfectly  understood.  Even  Mr  Parker, 
who  pronounced  so  decisively  upon  their  credi- 
bility, does  not  seem  to  have  given  them  any 
thorough  study.  Why  should  he,  if  he  believed 
them  to  be  fables  ?  In  the  work  already  referred 
to,  he  says  that  Christ  taught  the  reprobation  of 
the  majority  of  mankind,  and,  in  proof  thereof, 
refers  to  the  passage  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  which  says  that  "  broad  is  the  way  that 
leads  to  destruction,  etc.,"  a  simple  picture  of 
human  life,  not  first  given  by  Christ,  equivalent 
to,  "  Folly  leads  to  ruin  and  has  her  thousands 
to  follow  her,  while  the  way  of  Wisdom  is  nar- 
row, and  only  the  few  pursue  it,"  a  saying  all 
but  proverbial.      Again,  Mr  Parker   objects,  if 


58  THE  CHARACTER  OF   CHRIST. 

my  memory  serves  me,  that  Christ  promised  his 
disciples,  when  they  should  be  arraigned  before 
magistrates,  miraculous  assistance.  The  lan- 
guage of  Christ  does  not  necessarily  bear  any 
such  construction.  He  simply  assured  them, 
that,  when  they  found  themselves  in  that  posi- 
tion, it  would  he  given  them, — a  form  of  speaking 
synonymous  with,  they  would  he  able, — to  speak 
and  bear  themselves  as  they  should ;  with  the 
occasion  would  come  the  true  spirit  to  meet  it. 
Once,  some  time  before  his  death,  my  venerated 
friend,  Waldo  Emerson,  was  telling  me  of  the 
fidelity  of  a  man  who  had  been  long  in  his  ser- 
vice. I  quoted,  partly  to  myself,  "  Whosoever 
would  he  great,  let  him  serve.'''  "  Wlio  said  that?" 
exclaimed  my  friend :  "  say  it  again."  While  he 
betrayed  his  lack  of  familiarity  with  the  ISTew 
Testament,  he  was  struck,  as  he  well  might  be, 
with  the  wisdom  of  a  saying  that  fell  from  the 
lips  of  Jesus  by  the  wayside,  in  familiar  inter- 
course with  a  little  company  of  poor  fishermen ; 
a  saying  identical  with  that,  but  of  far  deeper 
significance,  which  the  father  of  modern  philos- 
ophy is  renowned  for  announcing  from  his  li- 
brary :   "To  command  I^ature,  you  must  obey 


THE   DECLINE   OF   FAITH.  59 

her."  The  comparison,  by  the  way,  suggests 
the  contrast.  How  great  the  difference  between 
the  two !  The  poor  peasant  of  Judea  exempli- 
fied in  life  and  in  death  the  grander  truth  that 
he  uttered.  The  philosopher,  with  all  his  learn- 
ing, failed,  in  the  lower  domain  of  physical 
science,  to  be  true  to  his  own  precept. 

To  return.  It  seems  to  me  sometimes  as  if 
to  the  wisest  and  most  enlightened  the  Gospels 
are  sealed  books.  How  indeed  can  it  be  other- 
wise ?  For  long  years  they  have  been  read  dili- 
gently enough.  Heaven  knows !  but  always  by 
the  light  of  the  theological  systems,  in  the  inter- 
est of  which  they  have  been  interpreted  so  long 
that  it  is  all  but  impossible  to  dissociate  their 
phraseology  from  the  dogmatic  "hoar  of  ages" 
which  cleaves  to  it. 

When  here  among  us,  in  N'ew  England,  the 
heavy  fetters  of  the  old  theology  began  to  fall 
awa}^,  and  a  freer  mode  of  thinking  to  prevail, 
it  was  the  aim  of  the  liberal  denominations  to 
relieve  the  Scriptures  from  orthodox  interpre- 
tations and  to  show  that  they  give  no  counte- 
nance to  the  old  dogmas,  to  declare,  in  fine, 
what  they  do  not  mean  rather  than  what  they 


60  THE   CHAEACTER  OF  CHRIST. 

do.  Consequently  those  who  forsook  the  old 
faith,  could  only  tell  what  they  did  not  believe. 
Beyond  that,  we  had  no  positive,  clearly-defined 
faith;  and  so,  in  the  eyes  of  many,  there  was 
but  little  difference  to  see  to,  between  the  non- 
orthodox  and  downright  unbelievers. 

I  suppose  that,  in  the  progress  of  thought, 
this  state  of  things  had  to  be.  But  a  conse- 
quence of  it  is,  that,  as  the  Gospels  were  no 
longer  believed  to  be  preternaturally  inspired, 
or  to  sanction  the  old  doctrines,  they  ceased  to  be 
studied  with  particular  interest.  It  was  enough 
that  they  were  found  to  be  not  Calvinistic  docu- 
ments. 

THE    EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY. 

Furthermore,  and  here  is  a  fact  that  demands 
most  serious  attention :  Our  Christian  Theol- 
ogy stands  insurmountably  in  the  way  of  a  due 
appreciation  of  the  historical  character  of  the 
Gospels. 

It  is  held  by  all  denominations  of  Christians, 
orthodox  and  liberal,  without  exception,  as  a 
fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  Faith,  that 
the  Revelation  contained  in  the  Gospels  is  pre- 


THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY.      61 

ternatural,  and  that  only  as  they  are  so  re- 
garded have  they  any  special  authority,  it  being 
affirmed  as  a  first  principle  of  our  Theology  that 
only  by  miracles,  that  is,  only  by  suspensions  of 
the  established  laws  of  nature,  can  a  Revelation 
be  proved  to  come  from  God. 

'Now  if  he,  of  whom  the  Gospels  tell  us,  has 
really  brought  to  mankind  a  Divine  Revelation, 
then  must  all  that  he  said  and  did  be  of  supreme 
interest  to  all  who  are  seeking  to  learn  the 
Divine  ways.  A  Revelation  from  the  Author 
of  all  things  must  harmonize  with  and  illumine 
all  else  that  has  come  from  the  same  Source, 
and  prove  our  greatest  guiding  light  in  the  study 
of  nature.  "What  is  the  end  and  aim  of  natural 
science  but  the  discovery  of  the  Ultimate  Power, 
a  seeking  after  God  through  the  study  of  his 
ways? 

But  when  Christ  is  represented,  in  his  being, 
or  only  in  his  working,  as  above  nature,  he  is 
put  outside  of  nature,  and  consequently  outside 
of  the  sphere  of  scientific  inquiry.  And  it  may 
be  said,  as  it  has  been  said  by  the  most  eminent 
student  of  nature  in  our  day,  that  Science  has 
nothing  to  do  with  him.     Accordingly,  left  to 


62     THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY. 

itself,  what  else  is  to  be  expected  but  just  what 
we  see :  Science  making,  indeed,  wonderful  dis- 
coveries and  inventions,  employing  forces  of 
the  nature  of  which  it  has  no  idea,  but  finding 
nothing  to  believe  in,  nothing  to  appeal  to  our 
deepest  sentiments  but  unintelligent,  unconscious 
matter  and  blind  physical  force  ? 

It  is  no  wonder  that  our  scientific  inquirers, 
searching  in  the  dark  among  atoms  and  monads, 
and  I  know  not  what  creations  of  the  scientific 
imagination,  after  the  Ultimate  Cause,  can  find 
no  Creative  Intelligent  Power  present  in  the 
Universe.  Laborious  and  acute  as  they  are, 
what  else  can  they  do,  since  they  get  no  help 
from  the  great  light  that  would  guide  their  in- 
vestigations ?  Sad  is  it  to  find  that  "star-eyed 
Science"  returns  from  ranging  through  the  Uni- 
verse to  bring  us  back  "  a  message  of  despair." 
It  has,  however,  this  great  excuse  for  the  pov- 
erty of  its  results :  it  has  been  warned  off*  from 
the  quarter  whence  the  guiding  light  comes. 
The  advocates  of  Christianity,  insisting  upon  a 
representation  of  Christ  that  puts  him  beyond 
the  range  of  inquiry,  have  virtually  forbidden 
Science  to  look  for  aid  in  this   direction.      A 


THE   EFFECT   OF  A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY.      63 

false  theology  it  is,  I  repeat,  that  is  responsible 
for  the  materialistic  modes  of  thought  now  so 
prevalent. 

Supernatural  Christ  was,  taking  this  word  as 
synonymous  with  superphysical,  but  when  he  is 
represented  as  working  preternaturally,  he  is 
not  only  outside  of  the  range  of  Science,  but 
beyond  the  reach  of  rational  belief.  If  his  works 
are  outside  of  the  natural  order  of  things,  how 
are  they  to  be  distinguished  from  creations  of 
the  human  imagination,  since  the  demonstration 
of  the  truth  of  any  fact  consists  in  its  being 
shown  to  be,  actually  or  presumably,  in  har- 
mony with  all  else  that  is  known  to  be  true? 
Omne  verum  consonat  vero. 

As  far  as  the  eye  has  penetrated,  there  every- 
where reigns  throughout  the  Universe  a  con- 
summate order,  which  is  one  grand  character- 
istic of  the  Creator.  The  laws  of  nature,  that 
we  talk  about,  what  are  they  but  the  Divine 
ways  under  another  name?  To  affirm  of  any 
event  that  it  is  an  interruption  of  the  laws  of 
nature  is  the  same  as  saying  that  God  contra- 
dicts himself,  which  is  incredible. 

Here  we  are  confronted  with  the  chief  ob- 


64     THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY. 

stacle  to  the  recognition  and  treatment  of  the 
Gospels  as  genuine  histories.  By  the  insistence 
of  those  who  profess  to  believe  them,  they 
abound  in  accounts  of  so-called  miracles. 

In  an  earlier  publication,  "  Jesus  and  his  Bi- 
ographers" (1838),  taking  for  granted  the  uni- 
versally received  theology,  I  assumed  that  the 
miracles  were  actual  suspensions  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  and  that  Christ  was  specially  gifted  with 
preternatural  power  for  the  express  purpose  of 
proving  his  Divine  authority.  And  what  I 
chiefly  sought  to  do  was  to  show  how  fully  in 
accordance  with  the  dignity  of  his  personal  char- 
acter and  with  the  simplicity  of  nature  he  is 
represented  as  using  his  peculiar  gift. 

I  have  since  been  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  alleged  miracles  were  not  miracles  in  the 
commonly  received  sense  of  the  word,  but  ex- 
traordinary natural  facts,  and  that  there  is  no 
reason  nor  necessity  for  supposing  that  Christ 
had  any  power  to  suspend  the  action  of  the  laws 
of  nature.  I  find  nothing  in  the  Gospels  that 
authorises  this  supposition. 

The  definition  of  a  miracle  as  a  suspension  of 
the  laws  of  nature  is  of  modern  origin,  unknown 


THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY.      65 

to  the  Scriptures,  both  Old  and  N"ew,  which  I 
found  I  had,  with  all  the  world,  been  reading 
from  a  mistaken  point  of  view,  a  point  of  view 
based  upon  the  mechanical  theory  of  nature,  an 
offspring  of  modern  Science.  Nature  being  con- 
ceived of  as  a  vast  mechanism,  whatever  appears 
to  be  a  departure  from  its  settled  order  is  to  be 
pronounced  a  miracle,  a  break  in  the  natural 
course  of  things.     Such  is  the  common  belief. 

JtTot  so,  not  so,  did  the  authors  of  the  Bible 
look  upon  the  world.  The  Hebrew  word,  and 
the  Greek  word  also,  translated  in  our  Scrip- 
tures "miracle,"  means  simply  "sign"  or  "prod- 
igy," and  all  that  our  English  word  "  miracle" 
signifies,  in  its  etymological  sense,  is  "  a  won- 
der." 

The  writers   of  the    Bible   saw   everywhere, 

not  the  working  of  blind  physical   forces,  but 

intelligent,  spiritual  agencies.     It  was  God  who 

did  all  things,  directly,  or  through  the  ministry 

of  angels  or  demons.      Such  is  the  Bible  view 

of  the  economy  of  the  world,  with  which  there 

were  no  sio^ns  or  wonders  that  were  not  in  har- 

mony,  and  of  which  they  were  not  a  part. 

Moreover,  in  respect  of  the  alleged  miracles 
6* 


66       THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY. 

in  the  ITew  Testament,  I  do  not  find  that  Jesus 
ever  claimed  any  preternatural  power.  He  af- 
firmed, indeed,  that  the  wonders  that  were  wit- 
nessed were  wrought  by  God,  but  as  emphat- 
ically did  he  declare  that  they  were  wrought 
through  faith,  a  natural,  spiritual,  God-given 
force,  planted  deep  in  human  nature. 

The  view  of  the  miracles,  therefore,  which, 
after  all  these  years,  I  have  come  finally  to  rest 
in,  is,  that,  marvels  as  they  are,  they  were  facts 
as  natural  as  the  rising  and  shining  of  the  sun ; 
and,  indeed,  of  all  facts,  the  most  natural,  since 
they  occurred  in  obedience  to  the  highest,  or 
deepest,  law  of  nature,  the  law  of  the  supremacy 
of  Spirit. 

Were  this  view  of  the  so-called  miraculous 
relations  accepted,  the  air  of  incredibility  which 
now  invests  the  Gospels  would  disappear,  and 
their  claim  to  be  treated  no  longer  as  fables, 
but  as  possibly  true  histories,  would  be  seen  to 
be  not  wholly  groundless. 

And  not  only  so,  upon  a  careful  and  candid 
examination  of  their  contents,  it  might  be  dis- 
covered that  the  so-called  miracles  which  they 
relate,  instead  of  being  suspensions  of  natural 


THE   EFFECT   OF   A   MISTAKEN   THEOLOGY.      67 

laws,  are  revelations  thereof,  revelations,  in 
fact,  of  the  very  highest  of  the  laws  of  N'ature, 
the  law  of  the  Supremacy  of  mind  over  matter. 
Then,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  representations 
of  Materialism,  Christ  would  be  seen  to  be  the 
Revealer  of  Spirit,  of  an  immaterial  Power  as 
the  creative,  all-animating  Cause  and  Soul  of 
the  physical  world.  ISTo  longer  should  we  find 
ourselves  cabined,  cribbed,  confined  in  the  midst 
of  a  vast  machine,  worked  by  brute  forces  that 
sweep  us  away  like  dust,  but  in  the  mansion  of 
an  Infinite  Spirit  of  Life,  of  Wisdom,  and  of 
Love,  and  in  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit 
we  should  behold  beings  partaking  of  the  Su- 
preme nature,  and  of  whose  high  position  and 
destiny  their  lofty  powers  and  graces  would  be 
more  significant  than  the  white  robes  and  wings 
of  angels. 

As  I  have  just  said,  Christ  never  pretended  to 
possess  any  preternatural  gift.  That  his  was  a 
finely  organized  nature,  that  he  was  inspired  by 
a  peerless  religious  genius,  and  was  endowed 
with  a  keen  and  searching  moral  insight,  the 
most  orthodox,  whatever  else  and  more  they 
believe  him  to  be,  will  not  question.     ("  Perfect 


68  THE   CHARACTER  OF   CHRIST. 

man"  as  well  as  "  perfect  God"  is  the  language 
of  the  old  creed.)  While  he  differed  from  all 
other  men  greatly,  the  difference  was  not  in 
kind,  but  in  degree.  He  was  no  other  wise 
made  than  all  men  are.  Of  all  human  beings, 
he  was  the  most  human.  In  him  the  greatest 
and  best  in  our  nature  was  most  fully  devel- 
oped. 

It  is,  then,  in  the  completeness  of  his  nature 
as  a  human  being,  not  in  any  superaddition 
thereto,  that  his  Godlikeness  is  shown,  his  Di- 
vine Sonship.  In  all  the  good  of  every  age,  in 
every  good  deed,  we  have  hints,  more  or  less 
significant,  of  the  same  sacred  relationship  to 
the  Highest.  But  in  Christ  shines  the  great 
Revelation,  full-orbed,  the  sun  amidst  the  lesser 
lights  of  the  firmament.  High  beyond  all  stands 
that  wondrous  Hebrew  youth.  In  him  we  have 
the  fullest  vision  of  the  Infinite  Spirit,  the 
Father.  Through  him  also  we  behold  in  all 
men,  by  virtue  of  the  nature  which  they  share 
with  him,  children  of  God, — rebellious,  lost,  chil- 
dren, but  still  children  of  God. 

This  Idea  of  Christ,  bringing  him  within  the 


THE   CHAEACTER  OF  CHRIST.  69 

embrace  of  our  most  sacred  sympathies,  of  our 
faith  and  our  veneration,  creates  a  new  faith 
in  the  transcendent  possibilities  of  our  nature. 
Does  it  not  give  us,  for  example,  a  new  sense 
of  the  height  to  which  man  may  rise  above  Self, 
as  we  contemplate  Jesus,  in  the  midst  of  multi- 
tudes rending  the  air  with  their  acclamations, 
and  behold  him  working  the  greatest  marvels, 
as  if,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  they  were  the 
commonest  human  offices,  seeing  in  them  no 
glory  of  his  own,  but  only  the  glory  of  God  in 
the  power  of  Faith  ? 

As  he  was  one  with  all  nature,  all  nature 
bears  witness  to  him,  and  is,  in  return,  illu- 
mined and  consecrated  by  the  light  that  radi- 
ates from  him  up  to  the  throne  of  God  and  down 
to  the  humblest  of  mankind,  to  the  meanest 
creature  that  breathes. 

If  we  are  ever  to  have  a  true  philosophy  of 
the  Universe  and  of  man's  position  therein, 
Christ  must  be  the  corner-stone  thereof.  It  can- 
not be  that  such  a  revelation  as  he  is  of  the 
Greatest  and  Best  will  not  shed  light  far  and 
wide    over  the  whole  sphere  of  human  know- 


70  THE   MYTHICAL   THEORY. 

ledge,  since  the  Universe,  seen  and  unseen,  is 
One.  Even  upon  the  old  orthodox  ideas  of  the 
Christian  Revelation,  it  has  its  theology,  or  phi- 
losophy of  the  world.  But  what  a  philosophy ! 
IJ^ot  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of 
God  shining  into  the  heart  from  the  person  of 
Christ,  hut  a  theology  that  shows  us  the  Uni- 
verse reddened  by  the  glare  of  an  ever-burning 
hell,  into  which,  age  after  age,  are  driven  by 
Almighty  Wrath,  for  the  sin  of  their  first  pro- 
genitor, myriads  of  human  souls  :  a  sight  which 
high  orthodox  authorities  have  taught,  enhances 
the  bliss  of  the  saints  in  heaven. 

THE   MYTHICAL   THEORY. 

In  addition  to  erroneous  views  of  the  nature 
of  Christ  and  of  the  marvels  related  in  the  Gos- 
pels, the  mythical  theory  of  their  origin,  with 
which  Strauss  has  made  us  familiar,  has  helped 
to  undermine  the  faith  of  many  in  the  historical 
claims  of  these  "Writings.  That  theory  has  been 
accepted  as  fully  accounting  for  their  existence. 

Strauss  does  not  appear  to  have  taken  care  to 
ascertain  the  real  meaning  of  the  Gospels  be- 
fore  applying  his    theory  to    them.      Like   all 


THE   DATE   OF   THE   GOSPELS.  71 

those  who  deny  their  historical  character,  he 
argues,  not  against  the  most  rational  construc- 
tion of  which  they  admit,  but  against  the  com- 
monly received  mistaken  interpretations  of  them. 
It  was  obviously  for  the  interest  of  his  theory, 
as  it  is  of  all  theories  unfavorable  to  their  his- 
torical claims,  that  they  should  be  made  to 
appear  as  improbable  as  possible. 

THE    DATE   OP   THE    GOSPELS. 

The  difficulty  of  determining  the  date  of  the 
Gospels — the  fact  that,  as  scholars  affirm,  there 
is  no  historical  evidence  of  their  existence  be- 
fore the  second  century — has,  doubtless,  gone  far 
to  create  unbelief  in  their  value  as  histories. 

I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  why  so  much 
stress  is  laid  upon  the  external  argument  for 
their  truth.  Unquestionably,  it  would  be  inter- 
esting to  know  when  precisely  and  by  whom 
they  were  written  ;  and  were  it  proved  that  they 
were  written  by  the  persons  whose  names  they 
bear,  it  would  help  to  confirm  our  faith  in  them. 
But  even  if  we  had  the  most  satisfactory  ex- 
ternal evidence  on  this  point,  there  would  still 
remain  the  question  whether  their  authors  were 


72  THE   DATE   OF   THE  GOSPELS. 

not,  more  or  less,  mistaken.  And  this  question 
would  depend  for  settlement  upon  their  intrinsic 
character  and  upon  no  extrinsic  considerations. 
In  determining  what  they  are,  whether  legends 
or  true  narratives,  it  is  not  necessary  that  we 
should  know  when  or  by  whom  they  were  writ- 
ten. They  are  to  be  interrogated.  They  must 
speak  for  themselves.  A  lapidary  does  not  need 
to  know  the  history  of  a  diamond  in  order  to 
decide  whether  it  be  a  diamond  or  not. 

Admitting  that  there  is  no  historical  evidence 
of  their  having  been  in  existence  before  the 
second  century,  nevertheless,  since  in  all  ages 
men  are  prompted,  as  by  an  irresistible  in- 
stinct, to  express  and  perpetuate  the  impression 
which  events  at  all  remarkable  make  on  them, 
it  is,  under  the  circumstances,  very  unlikely,  to 
say  the  least,  that  nothing  was  put  in  a  written 
form  about  Christ  until  a  hundred  years  after 
his  time. 

We  must  not  forget  the  vast  revolution  which 
the  Printing  Press  has  made  in  the  means  of 
publication.  In  that  old  time,  the  manufacture 
and  multiplication  of  copies  of  a  written  work 
must  have  proceeded  very  slowly,  and  it  may 


THE   DATE   OF  THE   GOSPELS.  73 

have  been  in  existence  for  a  considerable  period 
before  it  became  so  multiplied  and  so  widely 
known  as  to  be  said,  properly  speaking,  to  be 
published.  Publication  now  is  the  work  of  a 
day.     Then  it  was  the  work  of  years. 

Such  being  the  case,  that  the  Gospels  are  not 
mentioned  by  any  writer  before  the  second  cen- 
tury does  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  their 
being  compilations  of  written  narratives  that 
came  into  existence  and  had  been  passing  from 
hand  to  hand  and  slowly  multiplied  long  before. 
The  third  Gospel  (Luke  i,  1)  states  that  there 
were  "many"  such  in  circulation  before  that 
was  written. 

That  the  Gospels  really  are  of  this  descrip- 
tion, mostly  compiled  of  narratives  that  were  in 
existence  at  a  very  early  period,  is,  to  my  mind, 
abundantly  clear  from  their  internal  character. 
Even  considered  as  legends,  they  show  by  their 
lack  of  connection,  by  the  difficulty  of  reducing 
them  to  a  continuous  narrative  or  to  any  satis- 
factory order  of  time,  that  they  are  composed  of 
different  pieces  put  together  with  no  particular 
care. 

That  they  are  not  mere  legends,  however,  or, 

7 


74  THE  DATE  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

if  legendary,  only  so  in  a  few  passages,  the  whole 
tenor,  of  the  first  three  Gospels  especially,  shows. 
They  bear  numerous,  inimitable  marks  of  being 
true  histories ;  and  not  only  so,  but  of  histories 
that  existed,  in  some  form  or  other,  wellnigh  con- 
temporaneously with  the  events  narrated.  They 
have  all  the  freshness  of  first  reports.  They 
are  warm  with  the  life  and  with  the  impress  of 
the  facts  which  they  relate.  So  strongly  do  I 
find  them  thus  marked,  that,  for  my  own  part, 
I  need  no  external  evidence  to  reinforce  their 
credibility.  Like  all  true  things,  they  are  their 
own  credentials. 

Alexander  the  Great,  at  the  tomb  of  Achilles, 
wished  that  he  might  have  such  a  herald  of  his 
exploits  as  that  hero  had  in  Homer.  Wisely 
has  it  been  said,  "Do  great  deeds  and  they 
will  sing  themselves."*  Great  things,  said  and 
done,  strike  all  who  hear  and  behold  them,  and 
hearers  and  beholders  there  always  are,  who 
must  publish  what  they  have  heard  and  seen, 
or  die.  They  are  driven  by  the  overpowering 
force  of  truth  and  nature,  the  inspiration  of  God, 

*  Emerson. 


FAMILIARITY  WITH   THE   BIBLE.  75 

to  proclaim  it  in  all  possible  ways.     This  is  what 
is  meant  by  great  deeds  singing  themselves. 

And  this  is  what  the  Gospels  are  most  striking 
instances  of.  The  incidents  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
could  no  more  fail  to  be  told  by  every  means 
then  known  than  the  sun  could  fail  to  give 
light.  "Written  reports  of  them  did  not  wait 
to  appear  till  there  was  a  demand  for  them. 
They  created  the  demand.  As  I  have  paused 
over  the  different  scenes  of  that  wonderful  Life, 
and  have  been  touched  to  the  heart  by  the  God- 
like bearing,  at  once  so  original  and  so  natural, 
of  this  Man  of  men,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that, 
if  men  had  held  their  peace,  the  very  stones  in 
the  streets,  over  which  walked  those  blessed 
feet,  would  have  cried  aloud.  But  men  did  not 
hold  their  peace.  They  could  not.  And  conse- 
quently, by  word  of  mouth  and  by  written 
words  as  well,  the  world  instantly  began  to  ring 
with  the  immortal  Story. 

FAMILIARITY  WITH   THE   BIBLE. 

In  addition  to  the  causes,  which  I  have  men- 
tioned, of  the  Decline  of  Faith  in  our  Christian 
Records,  there   remains   one   to  be  briefly  no- 


76  FAMILIARITY   WITH   THE   BIBLE. 

ticed.  We  are  all  conscious  of  its  effect.  A 
common  proverb  states  it.  Familiarity  with  the 
Bible  has  bred,  not  contempt,  but  indifference 
and  despair  of  ever  finding  it  interesting.  It 
has  fared  with  it  as  Hamlet's  soliloquy  fared 
with  Charles  Lamb.  He  had  heard  that  piece 
of  Shakespeare  so  often  from  the  mouths  of 
declamatory  boys  and  men,  that  he  could  not 
tell,  he  said,  whether  it  is  good,  bad,  or  indif- 
ferent. Put  into  our  hands  when  we  were  too 
young  to  understand  them,  the  Scriptures  must 
needs  have  become  wearisome,  associated  per- 
haps with  the  hard  labor  of  learning  to  read. 
We  have  been  required  to  con  them  verse  by 
verse,  chapter  by  chapter,  as  a  religious  task, 
sometimes  as  a  punishment,  for  mischief  or  filial 
disobedience.  We  have  got  them  by  heart,  but 
only  the  words,  to  which,  regardless  of  their 
meaning,  we  have  attached  a  superstitious  sanc- 
tity. How  irksome  it  has  all  been,  who  is  not 
ready  to  confess?  Who  has  not  wished  that 
he  could  read  the  Bible  now  for  the  first  time  ? 
Old  Thomas  Fuller,  pious  man  that  he  was,  able 
to  draw  spiritual  nourishment  from  the  gene- 
alogies, and  even  perhaps,  I  should  not  wonder, 


THE  GREAT   LOSS.  77 

"  from  the  unedifjing  tenth  of  Kehemiah,"  be- 
trays his  weariness  of  this  Bible-reading  routine, 
when  he  tells  us  how  his  conscience  pricked 
him,  as  he  caught  himself  turning  over  the  leaf 
to  see  whether  the  daily  chapter  that  he  was 
bound  to  read  was  long. 

THE    GREAT   LOSS. 

And  yet,  after  all,  the  Gospels  have  been 
studied  and  commented  upon,  letter  by  letter, 
laboriously  enough.  How  vast  the  literature 
they  have  created !  The  hundred  and  sixty 
miles  of  shelves  in  the  British  Museum  could 
hardly  contain  the  volumes  that  have  been 
written  about  them. 

But  all  this  labor  has  been  spent,  as  I  have 
said,  mainly  in  the  interest  of  this  or  that 
system  of  theology,  and  all  upon  the  fatal  as- 
sumption that  these  writings  are  the  history  of 
a  Life  out  of  the  natural  order  of  things.  The 
consequence  is  that,  as  the  old  theology  is  shorn 
of  its  prestige,  and  the  general  mind  is  becoming 
familiarised  with  the  universality  of  law,  all  faith 
in  the  historical  truth  of  Christianity  is  going  to 

decay. 

7* 


78  THE  GREAT  LOSS. 

This  faith  destroyed, — what  does  it  import? 
I^othing  less  than  this :  the  loss  of  the  noblest 
Realised  Ideal  of  human  nature  that  has  ever 
yet  appeared  in  the  history  of  mankind,  a  loss 
we  can  poorly  aiford  to  bear,  especially,  now 
when  Science,  with  its  powerful  instruments,  re- 
vealing to  us  the  awful  mystery  of  Being,  and 
crushing  us  under  a  sense  of  our  apparent  insig- 
nificance, in  the  pride  of  her  dazzling  triumphs, 
is  making  popular  speculations  that  are  at  war, 
I  say  not,  with  Christianity,  but  with  all  but 
"the  ghost"  of  a  Religion.*     In  losing  Christ, 


*  "  He  tried  to  give  her  yet  another  idea  of  the  size  of  the 
Universe.  .  .  .  'There  is  a  size  at  which  dignity  begins,' 
he  exclaimed  :  '  further  on,  there  is  a  size  at  which  grandeur 
begins  ;  further  on,  there  is  a  size  at  which  solemnity  begins  ; 
further  on,  a  size  at  which  awfulness  begins  ;  further  on,  a 
size  at  which  ghastliness  begins.  That  size  faintly  approaches 
the  size  of  the  stellar  universe.  So  am  I  not  right  in  saying 
that  those  who  exert  their  imaginative  powers  to  bury  them- 
selves in  the  depths  of  that  universe  merely  strain  their  fac- 
ulties to  gain  a  new  horror  ?  ...  If  you  are  cheerful,  and 
wish  to  remain  so,  leave  the  study  of  astronomy  alone.  Of 
all  sciences,  it  alone  deserves  the  character  of  the  terrible. 
Then,  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  are  restless,  worried  by  your 
worldly  affairs,  and  anxious  about  the  future,  study  astronomy 


THE   GREAT   LOSS.  79 

we  lose  a  priceless  pledge  of  the  transcendent 
powers  and  destiny  of  human  nature,  an  all- 
comforting,  all-inspiring  Revelation  of  the  Son- 
ship  of  man,  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and 
a  great  light  is  extinguished  whereby  Science 
might  be  led  from  the  downward  path  which  it 
is  pursuing  up  to  the  life  and  power  of  Spirit. 
This  is  the  unspeakable  pity  of  it. 

It  cannot  be  too  deeply  impressed  upon  our 
minds  that  it  is  not  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
taken  apart  from  him,  but  it  is  he  himself,  his 
perfected  personal  being,  that  is  the  great 
Revelation,  the  essential  life  and  power  of 
Christianity.  "  The  highest  cannot  be  expressed 
in  words,"  but  only  in  Life.  Life  is  the  lan- 
guage in  which   God  communicates  with  man. 

at  once.  Your  troubles  will  be  reduced  amazingly.  But  your 
study  will  reduce  them  in  a  singular  way, — by  reducing  the 
importance  of  everj^thing.  So  that  the  science  is  still  terrible 
even  as  a  panacea.'  " — {Two  in  a  Tower.  A  Novel,  by  Thomas 
Hardy.)  If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  there  is  a  new  crea- 
tion. With  Christ  in  the  heart,  with  the  faith  in  God  and 
man  that  rests  on  him  as  on  a  Rock,  the  dread  Mystery  may 
be  affronted  with  unshaken  faith  and  triumphant  hope. 


80  THE  CHARACTER  OF    CHRIST. 

Happy  lie  who  translates  it  into  his  own  life, 
be  his  creed  what  it  may ! 

What  exalts  Christ,  to  my  mind,  high  above 
all  other  great  leaders  of  mankind,  and  deepens 
inexpressibly  my  sense  of  his  most  original  per- 
sonal greatness,  is  the  fact  that,  not  only  was  he 
far  greater  than  his  word,  great  as  his  word  was, 
and  of  what  other  can  this  be  said  ?  but  that,  so 
far  as  human  sympathy  was  concerned,  he  lived 
and  died  Alone,  Alone  with  God. 

Other  great  leaders  have  very  soon  gathered 
around  themselves  a  greater  or  less  number  of 
adherents,  who  have  caught  their  spirit,  appre- 
ciated their  aims,  entered  into  their  work,  and, 
continuing  faithful  to  the  end,  have  been  to  them 
a  world  of  encouragement  and  support.  But, 
from  the  first  to  the  last,  Christ  had  not  a  soul 
on  earth  that  understood  his  purpose. 

The  little  company  of  ignorant  men  who  at- 
tended him  were  drawn  to  him  with  a  force  of 
which  neither  he  nor  they  were  conscious,  by 
his  commanding  personal  qualities  expressed  in 
his  whole  bearing,  in  every  glance  of  his  eye, 
beaming  with  kindness,  or  flashing  with  indig- 


THE   CHARACTER   OF   CHRIST.  81 

nation,  in  every  accent  of  his  voice,  thrilling 
them  with  its  tone  of  perfect  sincerity.  But 
they  were  following  him  with  very  mercenary 
views.  They  were  depending  upon  his  making 
them  princes  in  Israel.  The  more  they  felt  the 
power  of  his  character,  the  more  they  trusted 
in  him,  and  the  more  confident  were  they  that 
he  would  fulfil  their  expectations.  The  kingdom 
which  they  implicitly  believed  that  he  would 
establish  was  a  kingdom  of  national  wealth 
and  splendor.  But  as  to  what  filled  his  whole 
heart,  and  for  which  he  lived  and  was  to  die, 
they  were,  as  he  more  than  once  called  them, 
children.  In  that  regard  they  were  as  ignorant 
as  the  dumb  brute  that  follows  its  master.  In 
his  extremest  agony  they  fell  asleep.  And  when 
at  last  the  crisis  came,  and  an  awful  death  con- 
fronted him,  they  fled  and  left  him  alone  with 
the  grim  horror. 

I^ot  only  was  he  thus  without  a  friend,  who, 
entering  into  his  mind,  and  understanding  his 
high  purpose,  could  lighten  his  burden  by  sharing 
it,  but  he  was  beset  at  every  step  by  mortal  foes, 
who,  urged  by  bigotry  and  hate,  were  bent  upon 
his  destruction,  accounting  it  a  God-service. 


82  THE  CHARACTER  OF    CHRIST. 

And  he,  who  thus  lived  and  died,  solitary  and 
alone  among  men,  to  whom  he  yearned  with  a 
brother's  heart,  was  not  a  person  of  an  austere 
temperament,  such  as  would  be  best  able  to  en- 
dure so  lonely  a  lot.  He  was  distinguished  for 
his  tenderness.  It  is  evident  from  the  style  of 
his  discourse  that  he  cherished  companionship 
with  ligature  in  its  various  forms,  with  the  birds 
of  the  air  and  the  flowers  of  the  field.  So  gentle- 
natured  was  he  that  Art,  in  its  endeavor  to  por- 
tray him,  overlooks  his  extraordinary  strength 
of  character,  and  depicts  him  as  a  person  of 
feminine  softness.  Oh  no,  there  was  nothing 
repellent  in  his  appearance.  When  those  around 
him  would  fain  drive  children  away  as  intruders 
into  his  presence,  he  was  much  displeased ;  he 
called  the  children  to  him,  took  them  in  his 
arms  and  pronounced  his  immortal  benediction 
upon  childhood.  And  children  it  was  who  wel- 
comed him  to  the  great  city  with  their  shrill 
hosannas.  Women  sat  at  his  feet,  ministered 
to  his  wants,  and  poured  their  fragrant  oint- 
ments on  his  person  in  token  of  their  rever- 
ence, and  one  wretched  creature  fell  at  his  feet 
and  covered  them  with  her  kisses,  and  bathed 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  CHRIST.  83 

them  with  her  tears  and  wiped  them  with  her 
hair. 

With  a  heart  ever  open  to  all  human  sorrows 
and  going  in  his  youth  straight  to  a  baptism  of 
blood,  with  no  friend  in  sympathy  with  what  was 
dearest  to  him,  how  profound  was  the  solitude  of 
the  soul  in  which  he  lived  and  died  !  What  ele- 
vation of  mind,  nothing  less  than  sublime,  does 
it  betoken,  that,  in  the  absence  of  all  human 
sympathy,  he  bore  himself  with  a  fraternal  con- 
sideration for  others  and  a  forgetfulness  of  him- 
self as  habitual  and  as  perfect  as  if  life  was  for 
him,  from  first  to  last,  a  triumphal  progress,  at- 
tended at  every  step  by  the  welcoming  acclama- 
tions of  a  world !  Who  shall  fathom  the  great 
deep  of  his  Faith,  of  his  faith  in  God,  of  his  faith 
in  man  ?  Only  once,  for  a  passing  moment,  in 
his  sharpest  agony,  did  his  mind  misgive  him. 
He  might  well  have  feared  that  he  was  the  dupe 
of  a  delusion,  that  there  was  no  God  in  heaven 
to  have  pity  on  him,  that  all  truth  and  virtue  had 
fl.ed  the  earth,  when  he  stood  before  Pilate,  for- 
saken by  every  friend,  with  the  demoniac  yell, 
"  Crucify  him !  Crucify  him !"  ringing  in  his 
ears,  and  all  that  the  world  accounted  respecta- 


84  THE   CHARACTER  OF    CHRIST. 

ble  and  religious  arrayed  against  him.  "Art 
thou  a  king?"  asked  his  judge.  "Thou  sayest 
it,"  he  replied,  "  I  am  a  King.  For  this  end  I 
was  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the 
world,  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth ;  and  every 
true  man  hearkens  to  my  voice."  Let  the  dark- 
ness, hiding  from  him  both  heaven  and  earth, 
gather  around  him  as  thickly  as  it  might,  it 
could  not  shake  his  faith  in  Truth  and  in  the 
existence  and  loyalty  of  good  men  and  true. 

In  contrast  with  Christ,  how  poor  is  the  out- 
come of  our  vaunted  superior  enlightenment! 
How  poverty-stricken  looks  our  boasted  Science 
in  the  appearance,  among  our  so-called  most  ad- 
vanced thinkers,  of  a  denomination  professing 
as  its  distinction,  in  relation  to  questions  of  the 
deepest  interest,  an  utter  inability  to  affirm  or  to 
deny  !  "We  are  measuring  the  heights,  sounding 
the  depths,  of  the  material  Universe,  and  re- 
ducing its  mightiest  forces  to  our  daily  service, 
but  around  the  Divine  in  Mature  and  in  the 
human  soul,  clouds  and  darkness,  exhaled  from 
the  broad  fields  of  our  Science,  are  gathering 
thick  and  fast. 


THE  GREAT   LOSS.  85 

Jesus,  alone,  and  in  an  ignorant  age,  affirmed 
the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Sonship  of  man. 
He  lived  and  died,  resting  in  immovable  faith  on 
these  affirmations.  And  their  truth? — behold  the 
God-given  warrant  of  it  in  the  peerless  charac- 
ter which  they  fashioned,  and  in  the  life  which 
has  gone  forth  therefrom  through  generations 
and  is  still,  in  countless  unacknowledged  ways, 
re-creating  the  world.  Where  is  the  wise  ? 
Where  is  the  scribe  ?  Where  is  the  disputer  of 
the  present  age  to  answer  our  deepest  questions  ? 
Is  not  God  again  making  foolish  the  wisdom  of 
this  world?  Why  should  we  care  for  proto- 
plasms and  molecules,  if  all  is  to  end  in  the 
annihilation  of  God  and  of  man  ? 

"I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn" 

than  have  the  whole  world  of  things  laid  bare  to 
me  in  the  light  of  Science,  only  to  find  at  last 
that  there  is  no  God  in  heaven,  and  no  hope  for 
man  on  this  earth,  groaning  and  travailing  to- 
gether in  pain  as  it  is. 

The  result  of  what  has  now  been  said  of  Christ, 
the  reason  why  we  cannot  afibrd  to  lose  him,  but 


86      CHRIST  FROM  A  LEGENDARY  POINT  OF  VIEW. 

must  cherish  him  as  our  dearest  treasure,  as  the 
cardinal  fact  in  human  history,  is  briefly  this : 
His  character,  being  the  creation  of  a  theory  of 
human  nature,  if  you  please  so  to  call  it,  I  prefer 
to  say,  of  an  Ideal,  which  represents  man  as 
standing  in  a  relation  to  the  Highest,  best  sym- 
bolized, though  inadequately,  by  that  of  a  child 
to  a  father, — this  Realized  Ideal  in  Christ,  ap- 
pealing directly  as  it  does  to  the  most  powerful 
sentiments  of  our  nature,  is  an  all-sufficient  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  of  this  Ideal.  He  was  no  pre- 
ternatural apparition.  He  was  no  myth.  He  was 
a  Solid  Fact,  at  once  human  and  divine,  in  the 
fullest  harmony  with  the  Divine  order  of  the 
world,  a  living  demonstration  of  the  Sonship  of 
man  and  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

CHRIST  FROM  A  LEGENDARY    POINT   OF   VIEW. 

Far  otherwise  than  what  I  have  now  represented 
him  must  he  be  conceived  of  when  the  accounts  of 
him  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  treated  as  mere 
fables  that  had  their  origin  years  after  his  time. 
Then  he  appears,  as  M.  Eenan  says  he  appeared 
to  him  before  he  went  to  Syria,  as  a  dim  person- 
age of  doubtful  existence.    JSTo  longer  revered  as 


CHRIST  FROM  A  LEGENDARY  POINT  OF  VIEW.      87 

the  creative  centre  of  all  that  is  good  and  hope- 
ful in  our  modern  life,  to  be  cherished  with  the 
deepest  reverence  and  the  liveliest  faith,  he  be- 
comes a  vague  vision  which  we  must  take  care 
that  we  do  not  unduly  magnify,  as  he  is  held  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  errors,  and  they  are  many 
and  great,  of  which  he  has  been  the  innocent  oc- 
casion, and  which  have  claimed  the  authority  of 
his  name.  As  well,  by  the  way,  may  the  mag- 
nificent spectacle  of  Creation  that  lies  all  around 
us  be  charged  with  the  monstrous  superstitions 
engendered  by  the  ignorance  and  fear  with  which 
it  has  been  contemplated. 

Although  regarded  as  a  legendary  personage, 
he  yet  may  be  acknowledged  as  an  eminent  moral 
teacher.  But  apart  from  him,  his  sayings  might 
as  well  have  come  down  to  us  anonymously  for 
any  peculiar  power  they  possess.  It  is  a  mistake, 
I  conceive,  to  magnify  him  merely  as  a  moral 
Instructor,  as  if  this  were  his  chief  claim  upon 
our  reverence.  The  Man  was  a  great  deal  greater 
than  the  Speaker.  No  sounds  of  the  lips,  though 
such  as  angels  use,  could  express  the  unsearch- 
able riches  of  his  faith  and  truth.  It  is  his  per- 
sonal character,  not  any  novelty  of  doctrine,  but 


88      THE   GOSPELS,  HOW   TO   BE   APPROACHED. 

his  very  life,  poured  into  every  word  and  work, 
that  has  made  him  great  among  men  beyond 
compare.  He  dealt  in  no  hearsays,  spoke  from  no 
external  dictation,  but  from  the  profound  convic- 
tions of  his  own  soul,  upon  which  he  planted  him- 
self as  a  king  upon  his  throne,  making  a  crown 
of  thorns  outshine  all  earthly  diadems,  and  "the 
world  come  round  to  him."  If  the  words  of 
Luther  were  half  battles,  the  words  of  Christ 
were  victories.  In  fine,  it  is  the  unrivalled  force 
of  his  character,  the  divine  humanity  of  his  life, 
God  within  him,  that  clothes  him  with  an  author- 
ity before  which  "  the  human  soul  of  universal 
earth"  must  bow  in  veneration  and  love. 

THE    GOSPELS,    HOW   TO    BE   APPEOACHED. 

It  is  difficult,  I  know,  to  approach  the  Gospels 
unbiassed  by  any  theories  of  belief  or  unbelief 
whatever.  We  look  to  find  in  them  the  confirma- 
tion of  our  preconceived  ideas ;  and  what  we  seek 
we  are  pretty  sure  to  find.  It  is,  indeed,  quite 
impossible  to  read  them  without  some  hypothesis, 
more  or  less  pronounced,  of  their  character  and 
contents,  nor  is  it  desirable.  In  the  pursuit 
of  truth  in  any  department  of  inquiry,  previous 


THE   GOSPELS,  HOW   TO   BE   APPROACHED.      89 

suppositions,  or  divinations,  are  indispensable. 
We  must  have  some  thread  to  string  our  facts 
upon,  some  idea  to  verify.  Only  we  must  be  on 
our  guard  and  take  great  care  that  our  theories 
do  not  run  away  with  us,  as  they  are  very  apt  to  do, 
out  of  sight  of  everything  that  contradicts  them. 

My  own  supposition,  suggested  by  certain  ob- 
vious characteristics  of  these  Writings,  is  simply 
this :  They  are  neither  theological  documents 
nor  fabulous  compositions,  but,  substantially, 
genuine  histories,  not  perfect  (what  history  is  ?), 
but  accounts  of  things  that  were  actually  said 
and  done. 

Accordingly,  what  I  have  endeavored  to  keep 
in  view  as  my  sole  aim  has  been  to  ascertain  how 
much  there  is  in  them,  which,  being  consistent 
in  itself,  with  all  the  actual  and  probable  circum- 
stances of  the  case,  and  with  all  that  is  known  to 
be  true,  carries  in  itself  the  evidence  of  its  truth. 

That  no  bias  of  preconceived  notions  has  im- 
paired the  singleness  of  my  purpose,  I  cannot 
pretend.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  project  one's  self 
out  of  the  sphere  of  inherited  modes  of  thought, 
and,  without  going  too  far,  take  the  right  stand 

beyond  the  reach  of  their  influence.   I  have  done 
8^ 


90      THE   GOSPELS,  HOW  TO   BE  APPROACHED. 

what  I  could  to  read  the  Gospels  as  if  they  were 
just  put  into  my  hands,  excluding  from  view  the 
peculiar  theological  and  official  representations 
of  him  whose  acts  and  sayings  they  record. 

As  they  abound  in  references  to  times,  places, 
and  persons,  and  are  obviously  and  eminently 
circumstantial,  that  a  faithful  and  candid  exam- 
ination will  make  it  appear,  beyond  all  question, 
whether  they  are  true  or  fabulous,  or,  if  a  mix- 
ture of  both,  to  what  extent,  I  have  no  doubt. 

This  confidence  has  been  amply  repaid  by 
signs  and  marks  of  an  unmistakable  signifi- 
cance, which  have  disclosed  themselves  at  every 
step.  I  make  no  boastful  claim.  But  I  am  free 
to  say  that  many  of  the  inimitable  undesigned 
evidences  of  truth  and  nature,  which  I  have  in- 
dicated from  time  to  time  in  the  Gospel  narra- 
tives, have  never  that  I  know  of  been  observed 
before.  They  would  have  been  found  long  ago, 
I  doubt  not,  had  they  been  looked  for.  Erro- 
neous ideas  of  the  character  of  the  Gospels,  and 
of  him  of  whom  they  tell,  have  prevented  a 
search  in  the  direction  that  would  have  led  to 
the  discovery  of  these  internal  evidences  of  their 
truth. 


THE   GOSPELS   READ   BETWEEN   THE   LINES.      91 

That  these  internal  evidences  have  been  so 
long  overlooked, — does  it  not  show  how  truly 
undesigned  they  were?  Had  they  been  in- 
tended to  create  an  air  of  truth,  they  would 
have  been  made  more  conspicuous. 

That  I  have  in  no  instance  mistaken  fancies 
for  facts,  I  cannot  venture  to  affirm.  Wherever 
I  may  have  done  so,  a  keener  critical  faculty 
than  I  possess  will  make  it  manifest.  I  am  far 
from  thinking  that  I  have  left  nothing  undis- 
covered in  this  most  interesting  field  of  inquiry. 
I  have  hardly  gone  beyond  its  borders,  but  I 
have  gone  far  enough  to  be  convinced  of  its 
inexhaustible  richness. 

THE   GOSPELS   KEAD    BETWEEN   THE   LINES. 

I  have  said  more  than  once,  in  previous  pub- 
lications, that,  in  order  to  be  rightly  understood, 
the  Gospels  must  be  read  between  the  lines.  In 
truth  they  have  already  been  read  a  great  deal 
in  this  way;  and  the  diverse  interlineal  mean- 
ings that  they  are  made  to  yield,  who  can  num- 
ber ?  But  they  have  been  thus  read  mostly  by 
the  highly  colored  light  of  theological  dogmas 
and   metaphysical   systems   founded   upon   mis- 


92  THE   BAPTISM   OF   JESUS. 

interpretations  of  the  written  word.  I  have  en- 
deavored to  discover  what  is  legible  between 
the  lines  by  the  pure,  white  light  of  the  undis- 
puted truth  of  nature.  What  I  have  thus  read, 
I  submit  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader  in  the 
following  instances. 

The  Baptism  of  Jesus. 

I  begin  with  a  passage  that  I  have  dwelt  upon 
often  before,  the  passage  that  relates  to  the  Bap- 
tism of  Jesus. 

It  impresses  me  deeply,  in  the  first  place, 
because  I  find  that  it  is  an  account  of  a  great 
moment,  of  an  era  indeed,  in  his  spiritual  devel- 
opment; and  then  because  of  the  perfect  truth 
to  nature,  to  the  laws  of  the  human  mind,  with 
which  the  experience  which  he  then  had  is  de- 
scribed. 

"When  it  is  stated  (in  the  second  Gospel)  that, 
after  his  baptism,  "•immediately  the  Spirit  driveth 
him  into  the  wilderness,''  I  read  between  the  lines 
that  his  baptism  was  no  cold  formality,  but  that 
he  was  so  profoundly  moved  by  it  that  he  could 
not  rest  in  his  old  familiar  relations.  Up  to  that 
hour  he  had  lived  his  ordinary  retired  life,  cher- 


THE   BAPTISM   OF   JESUS.  93 

ishing  in  the  secrecy  of  his  own  bosom  his 
high  aspirations,  meditating  the  work  to  which 
he  felt  himself  ever  more  and  more  urgently 
called.  How  thoroughly  acquainted  he  was  with 
the  spirit  of  the  time,  with  the  corruption  and 
savage  bigotry  of  the  ruling  classes  especially, 
his  subsequent  utterances  abundantly  attest. 
Consequently  he  saw  with  ever-growing  clear- 
ness that  it  would  be  certain  death  if  he  dared 
to  obey  the  inward  call,  and  go  forth  and  faith- 
fully declare  the  truth  concerning  God  and  man 
then  buried  out  of  sight  under  formalities  and 
traditions  which  were  hardening  the  heart  and 
perverting  the  conscience. 

At  last  the  hour  came  when  he  could  delay 
no  longer.  He  must  obey  the  sacred  impulse  of 
the  Spirit.  A  time  of  great  religious  excitement 
was  causing  multitudes  from  far  and  wide  to 
flock  to  the  Voice  and  the  Baptism  in  the  Desert 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan.  Jesus  quitted  his 
home  and  went  with  the  throng,  deliberately 
and  formally,  to  be  cleansed  of  all  hesitation  and 
delay,  and  to  devote  himself  to  a  work  that  had 
but  one  end,  a  violent  death. 

It  was  his  first  public  step,  the  step  that  costs, 


94  THE   BAPTISM   OF   JESUS. 

an  act  bj  which  he  virtually  pronounced  sen- 
tence of  death  on  himself.  "With  this  devotion 
of  himself  to  the  Supreme  "Will  when  it  willed 
for  him  so  appalling  a  fate,  there  came  a  new 
and  overpowering  consciousness  of  the  ineffable 
blessedness  of  a  perfect  unity  with  the  Highest 
and  Best.  So  new  and  deep  was  this  experience 
that  he  could  not  rest  in  his  old  surroundings. 
He  must  flee,  driven  from  within,  by  the  Spirit, 
to  the  silence  and  solitude  of  the  Desert,  there 
to  ponder  his  exalted  relationship,  which  was 
now  impressed  upon  him  as  never  before,  and 
prepare  himself  for  the  fatal  career  in  which  he 
had  now  taken  the  first  irrevocable  step. 

Now,  as  never  before,  and  as  it  never  could 
have  been  until  he  "  converted  conviction  into 
act,"  his  faith  was  deepened  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  being  shaken  or  disobeyed.  In  the  deep 
peace  that  overflowed  his  soul,  he  had  the  wit- 
ness of  the  Spirit  of  the  Most  High  that  it  was 
no  hallucination,  but  the  voice  of  God  in  his 
heart,  that  he  was  obeying. 

Bearing  in  mind  this  faith  which  now  knew 
no  misgiving,  and  the  power  of  which  his  fleeing 
to  the  Wilderness  reveals,  and  considering  also 


THE   BAPTISM   OF   JESUS.  95 

how  natural  it  is  for  the  boldest  figures  of  the 
imagination,  in  moments  of  intense  excitement, 
to  rise  before  the  mind  as  representative  of  the 
emotion  that  overpowers  us,  we  cannot  fail  to 
see  how  true  it  is  to  nature  that  Jesus  should 
describe  that  new  and  beatific  consciousness  of 
oneness  with  the  All-Perfect  as  a  vision  of 
heaven,  as  heaven  thrown  open  to  him.  "  The 
moment,"  says  Emerson,  "  our  discourse  is  in- 
flamed with  passion  or  exalted  by  thought,  it 
clothes  itself  in  images." 

And  is  it  not  with  equal  truth  to  nature  that 
a  dove,  the  common  symbol  of  love  and  peace, 
happening  to  hover  within  the  rapt  vision  of 
Jesus,  as  he  came  up  out  of  the  water,  "  in  bodily 
shape"  only  an  ordinary  dove,  was  instantly  glo- 
rified by  his  raised  imagination,  and  transfigured 
into  a  heaven-sent  messenger?  What  is  more 
common,  in  moments  of  deep  emotion,  than  for 
the  most  familiar  incidents  and  appearances  to 
be  invested  with  the  significance  of  omens  or 
portents  ? 

And  is  it  not  in  accordance  with  no  un- 
common experience  that  the  words  of  ancient 
Scripture,  "  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in  lohom  I 


96  IN   THE   DESERT. 

am  well  pleased, ^^  coming  suddenly,  involuntarily, 
to  the  mind  of  Jesus  as  expressive  of  his  new- 
born consciousness  of  the  approbation  of  the 
Highest,  should  seem  to  him  as  though  sounded 
in  his  ears  by  an  articulate  voice,  and  should  be 
so  described  ? 

Does  this  interpretation  of  the  Baptism  of 
Jesus,  which  I  read,  in  the  very  handwriting  of 
truth  and  nature,  between  the  lines,  seem 
strained  ?  Ah !  if  we  had  ever  had  an  expe- 
rience in  the  remotest  degree  akin  to  his  at 
that  great  moment,  these  figures  of  the  imagi- 
nation would  be  felt  to  be  all  inadequate  to  de- 
scribe his  unutterable  peace  of  mind,  the  natural 
accompaniment  and  consequence  of  the  divine 
consciousness  then  created  within  him. 

In  the  Desert. 

In  the  account  of  what  passed  in  the  Wilder- 
ness in  those  temptations  with  which  he  con- 
tended, and  which,  according  to  the  usual  modes 
of  thought  and  speech  of  that  time,  are  repre- 
sented as  suggested  by  an  evil  spirit, — in  the 
repetition  of,  "  If  thou  be  the  Son  of  God,^^  I  read 
between  the  lines  how  deeply  a  new  and  over- 


FIEST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC.  97 

powering  sense  of  his  Divine  Sonship  had  been 
impressed  upon  his  mind.  And  in  the  repeated 
mention  of  stones  in  the  same  account  I  read 
also  how,  in  his  self-communings,  his  thoughts 
were  suggested  by  surrounding  objects,  and  took 
shape  therefrom.  ["•  Command  these  stones  to 
become  bread,"  and  "  He  will  give  his  angels 
charge  concerning  thee,  .  .  .  lest  at  any  time 
thou  dash  thy  foot  against  a  stone.'') 

The  Gospels  tell  us  only  of  those  things  which 
struck  their  authors  as  extraordinary.  There  are 
many  little  particulars  which  we  should  like  now 
to  know,  of  which  they  give  us  no  information, 
as  they  were  not  thought  to  be  worth  mentioning. 
Thus,  they  have  not  told  us  how  the  experiences 
of  Jesus  at  his  baptism  and  in  the  Desert  came 
to  be  known.  That  they  were  told  by  him  to 
his  disciples,  I  doubt  not. 

FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN    PUBLIC. 

The   first  public   appearance   of  Christ  as   a 

teacher  caused  a  sudden  and  great  sensation,  so 

new  and  commanding  was  the  air  of  authority 

with  which  he  bore  himself.     An  insane  man, 

who  chanced  to  be  present  in  the  synagogue, 

9 


98  FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC. 

supposed,  according  to  the  popular  belief  of  the 
time,  to  be  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit,  was  so 
excited  by  the  whole  appearance  and  discourse  of 
Jesus  that,  unable  to  control  himself,  and  break- 
ing in  upon  the  decorum  of  the  place,  he  cried 
out  in  the  character  of  the  demon  by  whom  he 
believed  himself  to  be  prompted,  calling  Jesus 
the  Holy  one  of  God.  Jesus  instantly  turned 
upon  the  man  his  word  and  eye  of  command, 
and  bade  the  evil  spirit  depart.  Whereupon  the 
man,  under  that  influence,  shrieked  out  and  fell 
into  convulsions,  and  shortly  became  calm  and 
composed.  The  people  present  could  have  but 
one  thought:  Jesus  was  a  powerful  exorcist. 
From  the  synagogue  Jesus,  followed  by  an  ex- 
cited crowd,  as  I  cannot  but  imagine,  w^ent  to 
Peter's  house,  whither,  doubtless,  the  rumor  of 
the  startling  incident  in  the  synagogue  preceded 
him.  Peter's  mother-in-law  was  lying  ill  of  a 
fever.  At  his  appearance  at  her  bedside,  at  the 
thrilling  touch  of  his  hand,  so  stimulated  by  the 
excitement  of  the  moment  were  her  vital  forces, 
that  she  threw  off  her  fever  and  was  able  to  leave 
her  bed  and  assist  in  the  offices  of  hospitality. 
At  sundown,  when  the  Sabbath  was  past,  a  great 


FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC.  99 

crowd,  "  the  whole  city,"  one  Gospel  says,  were 
gathered  round  the  house. 

Then  we  are  told  that  the  next  morning  Jesus 
"  rose  a  great  while  before  day,  and  went  out,  and  de- 
parted into  a  solitary  place,  and  there  prayed.' '  I 
read  between  the  lines  that  he  was  so  disturbed 
by  what  had  happened  the  day  before  that  he 
could  not  sleep,  and  was  again  "driven  of  the 
Spirit"  into  solitude,  there  to  prepare  himself 
by  meditation  and  prayer  for  the  unlooked-for 
turn  which  things  had  taken;  and  when  his 
disciples  went  in  search  of  him  and  found  him 
and  told  him  that  every  one  was  inquiring  for 
him,  in  his  refusal  to  return  to  Capernaum, 
where  such  a  sensation  existed,  I  read  still  fur- 
ther that  he  had  a  far  higher  purpose  than  the 
healing  of  bodily  diseases. 

Thus  reading  this  passage,  I  find  myself  at  a 
point  of  view  from  which  all  the  difficulty  about 
the  miracles  of  Christ  vanishes  in  the  flood  of  new 
light  shed  upon  those  sudden  and  extraordinary 
effects  which  are  so  named.  I  see  that  they 
never  were  of  his  seeking,  that  he  wrought 
them  never  for  the  sake  of  exhibiting  his  power, 
but  only  as  he  was  moved  by  compassion,  that 


100  FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC. 

they  occurred  wellmgh  involuntarily  on  his  part. 
He  never  went  out  of  his  way — he  rather  avoided 
occasions — for  those  marvels.  He  was  at  times 
impatient  of  them,  seeing  that  they  fed  only  a 
barren  wonder.  "Except  you  see  signs  and 
wonders,"  he  once  exclaimed,  "you  will  not  be- 
lieve." They  had  not  been  contemplated  by  him 
when,  previously  to  his  appearance  in  public, 
he  had  meditated  on  his  future.  His  thoughts 
and  aspirations  had,  I  repeat,  far  higher  aims 
than  the  cure  of  bodily  diseases,  even  the  cure 
of  souls. 

And  as  these  cures  were  mostly  of  a  descrip- 
tion susceptible  of  mental  influence,  I  perceive 
with  equal  clearness  that  they  admit  of  being 
referred  to  the  unconscious  power,  the  all-sub- 
duing charm,  of  the  person  of  Jesus,  signified  in 
his  whole  bearing,  in  the  expression  of  his  coun- 
tenance, in  the  thrilling  tones  of  his  voice,  in  the 
air  of  authority  with  which  he  spoke,  and  which 
was  born  of  his  profound  conviction  of  truth, 
and  was  so  striking  that  it  is  expressly  men- 
tioned as  unlike  anything  that  the  people  were 
accustomed  to.  "  He  taught  as  one  having  author- 
ity^ and  not  as  the  Scribes,^^ — the  only  passage,  I 


FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC.  101 

believe,  approaching  a  description  of  him  in  all 
the  Gospels. 

IS'ow,  what  we  have  all  been  taught  is,  that 
these  remarkable  effects  were  miracles  in  the 
sense  of  suspensions  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  Jesus  was  expressly  empowered  to  work 
in  order  to  prove  that  he  was  from  God. 

They  certainly  do  attest  that  God  was  with 
him.  But  not  because  they  were  departures 
from  the  natural  course  of  things,  but  for  the 
very  reverse.  They  show  that,  in  conformity 
with  the  great  law,  the  Divine  wa}^,  in  the 
spiritual  world  as  in  the  physical,  Jesus  com- 
manded ISTature  by  obeying  her.  So  true  was 
he,  in  his  whole  bearing  and  being,  to  the  highest 
and  best  in  human  nature,  that,  without  design 
on  his  part,  and  to  his  own  surprise,  in  the  first 
instance,  his  simple  appearance,  the  whole  air  of 
him,  instantly  inspired  all,  whose  hearts  were  not 
turned  into  stone  by  spiritual  pride  and  preju- 
dice, with  a  boundless  confidence.  As  the  needle 
turns  to  the  pole,  so  all  that  was  true  in  the  heart 
of  man  turned  to  him,  even  as  he  himself  said : 
"  Every  true  man  hearkens  to  my  voice."  Even 
his  judge,  weak,  unprincipled  as  that  magistrate 

9* 


102  FIRST    APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC. 

was,  had  that  in  him  which  was  so  touched  by 
the  appearance  and  behavior  of  Jesus  that,  call- 
ing all  the  people  to  witness,  he  cried,  "  I  am 
guiltless  of  the  blood  of  this  innocent  man !" 

When  this  extraordinary,  personal  power,  na- 
tive to  Christ  as  a  man,  is  given  full  weight,  it 
will  be  seen  that  there  is  no  need  of  the  supposi- 
tion that  he  was  preternaturally  gifted.  It  abun- 
dantly suffices  to  account  for  the  extraordinary 
impression  that  he  made.  This  it  was  that  called 
forth  into  all-conquering  activity,  in  the  sick  and 
suffering  especially,  the  most  powerful  principle 
in  the  constitution  of  man.  Faith. 

"What  is  there  more  natural  to  man  than  Faith  ? 
He  was  created,  born,  to  believe  as  surely  as  he 
was  made  to  see  with  eyes.  The  Scripture  saith. 
The  just  shall  live  by  Faith.  In  truth,  the  un- 
just, we  all,  live  by  Faith.  Upon  what  else  does 
the  world-embracing  system  of  trade  and  com- 
merce rest?  It  is  Faith  that  is  treading  the 
mountains  under  foot,  that  summons  the  light- 
ning to  our  service  and  it  obeys.  It  is  Faith  that 
is  preparing  the  highway  of  the  Lord,  making 
the  paths  straight  for  civilization  and  human 
brotherhood,  and  for  all  the  o^reat  interests  of 


FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC.  103 

mankind  over  all  the  land  and  through  the  deep 
places  of  the  sea.  To  Faith  we  owe  all  discov- 
eries, all  progress.  All  things  are  possible  to  it, 
said  Jesus.  It  commands  all  nature.  To  this 
mighty  agent  directly  he  ascribed  the  sudden 
and  extraordinary  effects  which  we  call  miracles. 
It  restored  health  to  the  sick,  sight  to  the  blind, 
life  to  the  dead. 

Between  the  lines  that  report  the  emphatic 
and  unqualified  terms  in  which  he  described  the 
power  of  Faith,  in  his  declaration  that,  when  it 
existed  only  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  it  could 
uproot  trees  and  toss  mountains  into  the  sea,  I 
read  farther,  and  it  breaks  upon  me  as  a  revela- 
tion, that,  greatly  as  the  people  were  moved  by 
the  wonders  wrought,  no  one  was  so  profoundly 
impressed  by  them  as  Jesus  himself.  So  deep 
was  the  impression  that  they  made  on  him — and 
herein  the  peerless  strength  of  his  character  is 
seen — that,  as  unconscious  of  the  power  in  him 
which  produced  them  as  he  was  of  his  breath- 
ing, so  far  from  feeling  one  throb  of  self-elation, 
he  no  more  thought  of  taking  credit  to  himself 
for  them,  than  of  priding  himself  upon  the  ac- 
tion of  his  lungs.     They  simply  brought  him  a 


104  FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC. 

new  and  all-inspiring  experience,  deepening  his 
own  faith  mightily.  The  multitudes  who  wit- 
nessed them  were  filled  with  amazement.  In- 
sensible to  their  acclamations  as  though  he  heard 
them  not,  he  had  a  vision  of  God  in  that  wonder- 
working Faith,  the  presence  of  that  Supreme 
Power,  whose  ways — the  laws  of  nature  we  call 
them — are  in  the  great  deep  of  the  human  soul 
as  they  are  everywhere  throughout  the  Universe. 
It  was  in  the  conscious  power  of  his  own  faith, 
quickened  by  what  he  witnessed,  that  he  de- 
scribed faith  in  the  strongest  possible  language. 
His  own  faith  became  one  with  his  personal 
consciousness.  Accordingly,  he  is  never  repre- 
sented as  appealing  to  any  power  external  to 
himself.  He  uttered  no  adjurations.  On  no 
occasions  did  he  speak  in  a  more  commanding 
tone  of  personal  authority  than  when  he  healed 
the  sick  and  summoned  the  dead  back  to  life. 

It  is  most  interesting  to  note  that  his  personal 
consciousness  was  not  lost  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  power  of  God  within,  but  was  rendered 
all  the  deeper  by  being  identified  therewith.  He 
did  not  lose  himself,  he  found  himself,  in  God. 
When  at  last  he  cried,  "  Not  my  will,  hut  thine,  he 


FIRST   APPEARANCE   IN   PUBLIC.  105 

doner  the  apparent  surrender  of  his  own  will 
was,  in  truth,  the  exaltation  of  it  into  perfect 
unity  with  the  Divine  Will. 

Young  and  without  any  previous  similar  ex- 
periences, upon  his  first  appearance  in  public, 
incidents,  wholly  unlooked  for,  occurred  which 
called  forth  the  wildest  demonstrations  of  popu- 
lar favor,  and  he  instantly  became  the  object  of 
all  men's  wonder.  The  rumor  of  his  acts  and 
words  ran  far  and  wide,  losing,  w^e  may  be  sure, 
nothing  of  the  marvellous  as  it  spread.  Crowds 
flocked  to  him  from  all  quarters.  At  one  time, 
we  are  told,  there  was  such  "a  coming  and 
going"  that  he  and  those  who  attended  him  had 
not  time  "  so  much  as  to  eat."  Again  the  multi- 
tude was  so  great  that  they  trampled  upon  one 
another.  He  had  to  keep  a  boat  in  waiting  upon 
the  shore  of  the  Galilean  lake,  where  he  first 
appeared,  that  he  might  escape  the  press  of  the 
multitude.  The  whole  country,  wild  with  the 
sensation  he  was  causing,  heaved  under  his  steps. 
He  saw  deranged  minds,  through  the  confidence 
reposed  in  him,  restored  to  sanity,  and  withered 
limbs,  and  limbs  swollen  with  leprosy,  and  sight- 
less eyes,  recover  their  soundness. 


106  THE   GREATNESS   OF   CHRIST. 

How  could  it  be  otherwise  with  him  than  I 
have  said  ?  Such  an  extraordinary  state  of  things 
must  have  affected  him  deeply, — how  deeply, 
we  discover,  I  repeat,  as  we  read  between  the 
lines  that  report  the  unqualified  language  in 
which  he  spoke  of  Faith. 

His  own  faith  in  Faith  being  quickened,  as  I 
have  described,  there  was  created  in  him  such  a 
consciousness  of  power  as  only  such  a  person, 
with  such  an  extraordinary  experience,  could 
have.  It  was,  I  conceive,  in  the  unparalleled 
energy  of  this  faith  that  he  called  back  the  dead 
to  life  and  awoke  himself  from  the  deep  slumber. 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  appreciate  the  great- 
ness of  mind  which  the  last  hours  of  his  life  illus- 
trate, and  which  has  transfigured  the  vile  Cross 
into  our  most  sacred  symbol.  But,  in  truth,  the 
very  beginning  of  his  public  life,  when,  in  his 
youth  and  inexperience,  he  was  confronted  with 
such  startling  and  unexpected  incidents,  mani- 
fests no  less  impressively  the  same  Grodlike  char- 
acter. He  was  alike  unmoved  by  the  horrors  of 
a  lonely  and  terrible  death  and  by  the  blandish- 
ments of  the  most  enthusiastic  popular  favor. 
The  acclamations  of  multitudes  made  no  impres- 


THE   GREATNESS   OF   CHRIST.  107 

sion  on  him.  They  passed  by  him  as  the  idle  wind. 
He  was  as  deaf  to  those  seducing  voices  at  the  first 
as  he  was  to  the  imprecations  of  his  priestly  per- 
secutors at  the  last.  Both  the  one  and  the  other 
serve  only  to  illustrate  his  utter  unconsciousness 
of  the  severe  ordeal  to  which  he  w^as  subjected. 
They  illumined,  but  they  could  not  embarrass,  his 
perfect  self-possession.  As  in  the  storm  on  the 
lake,  he  was  alike  unmoved  by  the  wild  war  of 
the  elements  and  by  its  sudden  cessation,  so  that 
his  terrified  disciples  rushed  to  the  belief  that 
there  was  an  understanding  between  him  and 
the  winds  and  waves,  and  that  they  subsided  at 
his  rebuke,  so  always,  from  the  first  to  the  last, 
he  shows  a  royal  authority  over  the  most  trying 
circumstances,  making  them  his  obedient  min- 
isters, which  if  we  fail  to  be  struck  with,  it  is 
because  it  was  as  naturally  and  uniformly  sus- 
tained as  if  it  were  the  merest  matter  of  course, 
and  nothing  else  were  possible.  We  are  insen- 
sible to  it  even  as  he  himself  was  unconscious  of 
it.  JtTot  until  we  recollect  his  temptations  in  the 
wilderness  at  the  first  and  his  agony  in  the  gar- 
den at  the  last,  are  we  made  to  see  how  entirely 
native  to  him  his  greatness  was,  and  how  the 


108  JESUS    AND    HIS    MOTHER. 

regal  dignity  of  his  mind  was  due  to  no  phleg- 
matic insensibility,  but  to  a  character  no  less 
tender  than  strong. 

On  the  Lake. 

Where  it  is  related  that  he  was  in  a  vessel  on 
the  lake,  and  that  he  was  asleep,  and  that  there 
were  other  boats  out  on  the  lake  at  the  same 
time,  we  may  read  between  the  lines  that,  ex- 
hausted by  the  fatigue  which  drove  him  there  to 
escape  the  crowds,  he  had  instantly  fallen  asleep, 
and  that,  when  he  left  the  land,  those  other 
boats  had  pushed  off,  filled  with  people  deter- 
mined not  to  lose  sight  of  him.  These  particu- 
lars are  not  mentioned,  but  are  they  not  just  as 
legible  as  the  written  characters  ? 

Jesus  and  his  Mother. 

On  a  certain  occasion,  when  Jesus  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  large  crowd  in  a  state  of  great 
excitement  caused  by  a  sudden  cure  that  had 
just  been  wrought,  and  certain  Pharisees  pres- 
ent, stung  to  madness  by  hearing  the  people 
pronounce  this  base  Galilean  the  son  of  David ! 
the  Messiah !  charged  him  with  being  in  league 


JESUS   AND   HIS   MOTHER.  109 

with  the  very  devil  of  devils,  upon  some  one's 
calling  out  to  him  that  his  mother  was  there 
wanting  to  speak  with  him,  he  exclaimed,  "  Who 
is  my  mother  f^  an  exclamation  apparently  so 
unfilial  that  M.  Renan  infers  from  it  that  he 
was  wanting  in  natural  affection, — He  !  he  who, 
in  the  sharp  agony  of  a  terrible  death,  forgot 
himself  in  solicitude  for  her  who  bore  him ! 

[That  divinely  human  incident,  by  the  way, 
at  the  Crucifixion  M.  Renan  regards  as  a  fabri- 
cation designed  to  intimate  what  a  favorite  of 
Jesus  John  was.  This  way  of  disposing  of 
whatever  in  the  history  happens  to  strike  us  as 
unlikely  is  very  easy,  but,  as  I  have  said,  the 
perfectly  artless  character  of  the  Gospels  per- 
emptorily forbids  recourse  to  any  such  sus- 
picions.    To  return :] 

Between  the  lines  I  read  that  his  mother, 
alarmed  at  the  stir  which  her  son  was  causing,  and 
fearing,  from  the  malignant  things  said  against 
him,  that  he  would  get  himself  into  trouble,  had 
come  to  persuade  him  to  go  home  with  her. 

I  read  further  that,  shocked  to  the  last  degree 

at  the  depravity  of  ascribing  to  the  devil  an  act 

of  humanity,  he  was  so  carried  away  by  his  in- 
10 


110  JESUS   AND    HIS   MOTHER. 

dignation  in  exposing  the  base  charge,  that  it 
was  not  in  human  nature  to  regard  the  abrupt 
introduction,  even  of  his  dearest  personal  ties, 
otherwise  than  as  an  intolerable  intrusion.  I 
read  in  his  exclamation,  not  that  he  loved  his 
mother  less  than  he  should,  but  that  he  loved 
God  and  truth  the  most.  We  can  love  no  mor- 
tal friend  truly  until  we  love  God  supremely. 

In  the  third  Gospel,  where  the  same  occurrence 
is  related,  there  is  nothing  said  of  the  mother 
of  Jesus'  wanting  to  see  him,  but  it  is  written 
that  a  woman  in  the  crowd  cried  aloud,  ''  Blessed 
is  she  who  bore  thee,  and  the  breast  that  gave  thee 
nourishment."  Between  the  lines  I  read  that  it 
was  hearing  the  mother  of  Jesus  mentioned  (as 
stated  in  the  first  Gospel)  that  suggested  this 
woman's  exclamation.  And  I  read  also  in  his 
reply  to  her,  '^Blessed  are  they  who  hear  the  word 
of  God  and  keep  it,"  the  same  state  of  mind  that 
a  moment  before  led  him  to  exclaim,  "  Who  is 
my  mother?"  Any  allusions  to  himself  or  to 
his  private  relations  he  could  not  then  bear,  so 
absorbed  was  he  in  exposing  the  blasphemy  of 
attributing  to  an  evil  spirit  the  manifest  work 
of  God.    Such  allusions,  diverting  attention  from 


JESUS   AND   THE   KICH    YOUTH.  Ill 

the  truths  that  he  was  then  declaring,  and  that 
filled  his  whole  mind,  he  felt  to  be  ill-timed, 
utterly  out  of  place. 

When  the  scene  ended  by  his  pointing  to  his 
disciples,  and  saying,  ''  Behold  my  mother  and 
my  brothers  !  Whosoever  will  do  the  will  of  my 
Father  in  heaven,  the  same  is  my  mother,  and 
sister,  and  brother," — in  this  introduction  of  the 
sisterly  relation  is  there  not  visible  between  the 
lines  a  reference  to  the  woman  who  had  just 
broken  forth  in  blessing  his  mother?  Do  I  fancy, 
or  do  I  not  read,  that  the  woman,  with  the  char- 
acteristic disposition  of  her  sex,  took  his  reply, 
"  Blessed  are  they  who  hear  the  w^ord  of  God  and 
keep  it,"  although  expressed  in  general  terms, 
directly  to  herself,  as  a  personal  rebuff,  as  if  he 
had  said,  "  Blessed  art  thou  if  thou  hear  the  word 
of  Grod  and  keep  it,"  and  that  it  was  because  he 
saw  her  and  marked  her  discomfiture,  or  felt 
that  she  was  wounded,  that  he  introduced  the 
sisterly  allusion  ? 

Jesus  and  the  Rich  Youth. 

The  narrative  of  the  rich  young  man  who 
came  to  Jesus,  asking  what  he  should  do  to  in- 


112  JESUS    AND   THE   RICH   YOUTH. 

herit  eternal  life,  abounds  in  exquisite  touches, 
written  between  the  lines,  not  by  the  hand  of 
man,  but  by  truth  and  nature. 

To  perceive  the  full  significance  of  this  pas- 
sage, we  must  keep  distinctly  in  mind  the  wide 
difference  between  Christ's  idea  of  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven,  and  the  idea  that  his  disciples 
had  of  it.  To  them  it  was  a  kingdom  like  all 
other  kingdoms,  only  far  excelling  all  others 
in  wealth  and  power.  To  him  it  was  the  reign 
of  Truth  and  Eighteousness,  which  could  be  es- 
tablished, such  were  the  corruptions  of  the  world, 
such  the  savage  passions  that  bore  sway,  only 
through  the  fire  and  blood  of  merciless  perse- 
cutions. E'o  one  could  engage  in  its  service,  who 
was  not  prepared  to  give  up  everything  for  its 
sake. 

The  appearance  of  the  rich  youth  was  so  pre- 
possessing that  it  is  said,  in  the  simple  style 
of  the  Gospels,  that  "  Jesus  loved  him.''  His  re- 
spectful address,  "  Good  Master!"  uttered  in  no 
hollow,  conventional  tone,  but  with  that  air  of 
earnest  sincerity  that  carries  with  it  a  certain 
authority,  prompted  Jesus  to  repel  the  winning 
flattery,  to  disclaim  the  title  of  "  Good,"  and  to 


JESUS    AND   THE   RICH    YOUTH.  113 

remind  the  youth  that  only  to  One  did  that  title 
apply. 

In  answer  to  the  question  put  to  him,  Jesus 
bade  the  young  man  keep  the  Commandments. 
"  I  have  always  kept  them ;  what  more  am  I  to 
do  ?"  was  the  further  inquiry.  "  If  thou  wilt  be 
perfect/'  said  Jesus,  "  dispose  of  your  riches, 
give  them  to  the  poor,  and  come  with  me." 

It  has  been  inferred  from  these  words  that 
Jesus  required  a  vow  of  perpetual  poverty  as 
an  essential  condition  of  Christian  discipleship. 
But  he  spoke  for  the  hour.  Now  that  he  has  not 
lived  and  died  wholly  in  vain,  the  world  is  so  far 
advanced,  that  wealth  may  be  made  a  powerful 
means  of  aiding  in  the  establishment  of  the  Di- 
vine Kingdom.  But  at  such  a  time  as  that  in 
which  Christ  lived,  no  wiser  counsel  could  be 
given  than  he  gave  to  any  one  who  proposed  to 
devote  himself  to  the  advancement  of  Truth  and 
Right ;  for  the  certain  loss,  not  of  property  only, 
but  of  life  would  be  incurred  in  that  service. 
Upon  no  other  condition  at  that  time  could  the 
true  Kingdom  of  God  come. 

The  young  man,  accustomed  to  a  life  of  luxury, 

was  utterly  unequal  to  so  great  a  sacrifice.     Give 
10* 


114  JESUS   AND   THE   RICH   YOUTH. 

up  all  his  riches !  it  was  impossible.  He  had 
come  running  to  Jesus  with  all  the  ardent  con- 
fidence of  youth,  unconscious  of  ever  having 
transgressed  the  law,  ready,  he  flattered  himself, 
to  do  whatever  might  be  required  of  him  for  the 
sake  of  the  life  eternal.  He  turned  crestfallen 
and  went  slowly  away. 

And  then  broke  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  the 
exclamation,  "  How  hardly  shall  they  who  have 
riches  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  GodT^  As  if 
he  had  said,  "  Since  this  young  man,  blameless 
of  any  transgression,  lovable  as  he  is,  cannot 
resign  his  riches  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's 
sake,  no  rich  man  can.  A  camel  can  pass 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle  sooner." 

Jesus  is  greatly  misunderstood  when  he  is 
here  taken  to  the  letter.  He  spoke  as  he  was 
moved.  He  was  touched  to  the  heart  by  the 
case  of  this  interesting  youth.  It  was  deep  feel- 
ing to  which  he  thus  gave  expression ;  and  deep 
feeling  never  limits  itself  to  measured  terms.  It 
never  stops  to  make  exceptions,  or  to  qualify 
its  utterances.  IN'ot  the  absolute  impossibility, 
but  the  extreme  difficulty,  of  the  entrance  of  the 
rich  into  the  Kingdom  of  God,  that  is,  into  the 


JESUS   AND   THE   RICH   YOUTH.  115 

self-sacrificing  service  of  Truth  at  that  hour,  is 
the  lesson  we  are  to  learn  from  these  words  of 
Christ's. 

At  this  exclamation  of  his,  his  disciples  were 
exceedingly  astonished,  as  well  they  might  be,  see- 
ing what  their  views  were,  and  they  cried,  "  Who 
then  can  be  saved  ?"  "  To  enter  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven"  and  ''  to  be  saved"  were,  in  their  minds, 
equivalent  expressions.  And  salvation  meant  with 
them,  first  of  all,  salvation  from  poverty;  it  was 
to  be  made  rich.  They  were,  of  course,  amazed 
above  measure  at  this  declaration  of  their  Mas- 
ter's. If  the  rich  could  not  enter  the  glorious 
kingdom,  could  not  be  saved,  such  was  their 
thought,  how  could  there  be  any  saved  ?  Simple- 
minded  men  that  they  were  !  How  transparently 
did  they  betray  the  childish  dreams  they  were 
cherishing  !  Fixing  his  eyes  upon  them  (with  a 
look  which  they  never  forgot, — it  is  expressly 
recorded  in  two  of  the  Gospels, — as  if  he  were 
reading  all  that  was  in  their  hearts,  and  saw  the 
whole  extent  of  their  delusion),  well  did  he  call 
them  "  Children,"  and,  in  answer  to  their  looks 
and  exclamations  of  wonder,  assure  them  that  it 
might  be  impossible  to  them  that  there  should  be 


116  JESUS   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES. 

any  salvation  without  rich  men,  but  that  it  was 
possible  with  God. 

Wisely  did  he  forbear,  for  their  sakes,  to  go 
any  further.  Time  and  the  progress  of  events, 
he  well  knew,  would  enlighten  them,  and  bring 
them  riches  surpassing  far  their  present  worldly 
expectations.  Any  further  explanation,  at  that 
moment,  they  could  not  bear.  It  would  have 
been  sure  to  shock  them  and  peril  their  fidelity 
to  the  Truth. 

Reading  on  between  the  lines,  we  have  a  still 
fuller  revelation  of  their  hopes,  when  Peter,  ever 
forward  to  take  the  lead  and  speak  for  the 
others,  thinking  it  high  time  to  come  to  an  un- 
derstanding, immediately  inquired,  "  What  are 
we  going  to  have,  we  who  have  left  all  and  fol- 
lowed thee  ?"  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,''  answered 
their  Master,  "  there  is  no  man  who  has  left  house, 
or  parents,  or  brothers,  or  sisters,  or  loife,  or  children, 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God's  sake,  who  will  not  receive 
manifold  more  in  this  present  time,  and  in  the  world 
to  come  life  everlasting."  An  eternal  truth.  An 
emphatic  announcement  of  the  law  of  compensa- 
tion. Whatever  a  man  sacrifices  for  God  and  the 
Right,  Truth  will  do  manifold  more  for  him  than 


JESUS   AND    HIS   DISCIPLES.  117 

he  can  do  for  the  Truth.  That  will  reward  him 
in  full  measure,  pressed  down  and  running  over. 

The  disciples  of  Jesus,  however,  could  not 
then  have  caught  so  much  as  an  inkling  of  his 
meaning.  Of  '^  the  peace  and  joy  in  believing" 
which  they  afterwards  came  to  know,  they  had 
as  yet  no  experience.  They  were  confidently 
expecting  to  be  rewarded  for  their  devotion  to 
their  Master  with  riches  and  honors.  They  had 
no  thought  of  the  possibility  of  any  different  com- 
pensation. Accordingly,  in  the  first  Gospel  we 
find  Jesus  reported  as  saying,  not  what  he  said, 
but  what,  in  their  simplicity,  they  honestly  be- 
lieved that  he  meant,  namely,  that  they  should 
^^  sit  on  twelve  thrones,  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israeli  With  their  expectations,  they  could  put 
no  other  construction  upon  ^'the  manifold  more" 
which  he  promised,  a  construction  which  I  can- 
not for  a  moment  imagine  that  he  dreamed  of 
authorising.  It  contradicts  the  whole  tenor  of 
his  teaching,  the  whole  spirit  of  his  life.  And, 
besides,  it  is  directly  at  variance  with  the  warn- 
ing that  he  immediately  gave  them,  that  though 
they  were  the  first  they  might  be  the  last. 

Since  Peter  and  his  fellow-disciples,  as  may  be 


118  JESUS   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES. 

read  between  the  lines,  were  flattering  them- 
selves with  the  expectation  that  as  they  were  the 
first  to  follow  Christ,  they  would  have  an  advan- 
tage over  those  who  came  after  them,  he  went 
on  to  say  that  many,  who  were  first,  would  be 
last,  and  the  last  would  be  first.  And  in  illus- 
tration of  this  saying  he  told  the  story  of  the 
owner  of  a  vineyard,  who  went  out  at  different 
hours  of  the  day  to  hire  laborers,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  day  paid  those  whom  he  had  engaged  at 
the  eleventh  hour  equally  with  the  first ;  a  para- 
ble that  has  been  held  to  teach  the  efficacy  of  a 
death-bed  repentance.  It  has  no  such  reference. 
The  eleventh  hour  laborers  had  not  refused  to 
work  before.  They  had  had  no  opportunity.  No 
man  had  hired  them.  What  the  story  was  in- 
tended to  teach  is  that  those  who  should,  in  the 
Providence  of  Heaven,  come  late  into  the  service 
of  the  Divine  Kingdom,  would  share  in  the 
rewards  of  that  service  equally  with  those  who 
came  earlier.  Had  the  disciples  perceived  the 
drift  of  the  parable,  they  would  not  have  ex- 
pected a  reward  for  being  the  first. 

Let  us  pause  here  to  observe  with  what  fidelity 
to  nature  the  spiritual  growth  of  the  personal 


JESUS   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES.  119 

disciples  of  Christ  went  on.  Much  of  what  he 
said,  they  scarcely,  if  at  all,  understood.  It  was 
utterly  irreconcilable  with  all  their  fondly  cher- 
ished views.  It  found  no  place  in  minds  full  of 
very  different  things.  Nevertheless,  his  personal 
influence,  acting  upon  them  every  instant,  un- 
consciously on  his  part  and  on  theirs,  through 
every  glance  of  his  eye  and  every  tone  of  his 
voice,  was  steadily  creating  in  them  a  growing 
trust,  a  respect  that  deepened  into  awe,  and  they 
learned  to  confide  in  him  more  than  in  them- 
selves. In  contradiction  of  a  common  proverb, 
the  more  familiar  and  intimate  their  intercourse 
with  him,  the  profounder  grew  their  rever- 
ence. But  the  more  they  trusted  in  him,  the 
more  passionately  did  they  cherish  their  Mes- 
sianic visions.  Thus  the  tares  and  the  wheat 
grew  together  in  their  minds,  and  for  a  while, 
instead  of  cither's  choking  the  other,  they  pro- 
moted each  the  other's  growth.  As  their  worldly 
hopes  grew,  so  grew  the  faith  of  his  disciples  in 
Christ.  It  became  necessary  for  their  sakes,  as 
he  is  recorded  to  have  told  them,  that  he  should 
leave  them,  that  the  right  spirit  might  gain  the 
ascendency.     Although  they  never  formally  re- 


120  JESUS    AT   BETHANY. 

nounced  their  Jewish  expectations,  and  though 
to  the  last  they  looked  for  their  Master  to  come 
again  and  reign  in  great  glory,  yet  the  vision  re- 
treated into  the  background,  and  the  vile  Cross 
became  more  glorious  in  their  eyes  than  any 
throne.     The  wheat  outgrew  the  tares. 

Jesus  at  Bethany. 

What  a  truth  to  nature,  what  a  depth  of 
pathos,  do  we  miss  when  we  read  only  what  is 
written,  and  discern  not  what  is  legible  between 
the  lines  in  the  account  of  what  passed  in  the 
house  of  Simon  at  Bethany,  where  Mary,  in 
token  of  her  reverence,  poured  the  precious  oint- 
ment on  the  head  of  Jesus  ! 

There  may  seem  at  first  sight  an  inconsistency 
between  his  ready  acceptance  of  that  costly  act 
of  personal  homage  and  his  disclaiming  expres- 
sions of  personal  respect  as  he  did,  once,  when, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  was  accosted  by  the  title  of 
"  Good  Master,"  and  again  when  a  woman  broke 
forth  in  a  benediction  on  his  mother.  But  all 
appearance  of  inconsistency  vanishes  when  we 
note  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  occasion 
in  Simon's  house. 


JESUS   AT   BETHANY.  121 

The  incident  at  Bethany  occurred  only  a  short 
time  before  the  death  of  Jesus,  when  the  black 
shadow  of  his  awful  fate  was  upon  him.  Aware 
that  his  powerful  enemies  were  busy  conspiring 
against  him  and  that  he  might  be  arrested  at 
any  moment  and  dragged  away  to  death,  was 
it  not  in  exquisite  accord  with  human  nature 
that  he  should  be  struck  by  the  connection 
of  this  act  of  Mary  with  his  near  death?  The 
perfume  of  the  ointment,  associated  by  the  cus- 
tom of  his  people  with  the  offices  for  the  dead, 
filled  his  sense  with  the  odor  of  death  and  of 
the  grave.  Had  a  thought  of  the  construction 
which  he  put  upon  this  act  of  hers  crossed  the 
mind  of  Mary,  how  would  she  have  shrunk  from 
thus  hastening  to  discharge  so  painful  an  office  ! 
She  thought  only  of  doing  him  honor.  It  was 
because  she  did  not  dream  of  what  she  was 
doing  that  he  was  so  struck  with  the  connec- 
tion of  her  act  with  his  near  death,  that  he 
declared  it  would  be  told  all  the  world  over. 
She  was  performing  a  more  sacred  office  than 
she  knew.  She  was  embalming  him.  "Dis- 
turb her  not!"  he  exclaimed. 

As  he  had  lived,  so  was  he  about  to  die  for 
11 


122  AT   THE   LAST   SUPPER. 

the  poor,  for  the  poor  of  all  ages  and  all  climes. 
But,  at  that  moment,  the  claims  of  the  poor 
were  to  be  set  aside.  A  purpose  of  affection, 
sacred  in  itself,  and  doubly  sacred  in  that  it  was 
undesignedly  a  solemn  funeral  office,  was  not  to 
be  frustrated.  The  poor  could  always  be  min- 
istered to;  but  the  fragrance,  that  then  filled 
one  humble  dwelling,  was  to  fill  all  the  world, 
and  the  pathos  of  that  act  of  Mary,  that  never 
could  be  repeated,  was  to  touch  the  hearts  of 
generations  of  men. 

At  the  Last  Sujyper. 

In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
it  is  written  that  Jesus  ^' rose  from  supper,  and  laid 
aside  his  garments,  and  took  a  toivel,  and  girded  him- 
self. After  that  he  j^oiired  water  into  a  hasin,^^  etc. 
Here  is  a  detail  of  apparently  insignificant  par- 
ticulars, curiously  minute.  "We  read  between 
the  lines  that  the  wonder  of  what  followed  began 
with  his  rising  from  the  table.  All  eyes  were 
instantly  turned  to  him.  "What  is  he  going 
to  do  ?"  was  written  on  every  face.  Every  move- 
ment that  he  made,  increasing  the  wonder  and 
curiosity  with  which   it  was  watched,  stamped 


AT   THE   LAST   SUPPER.  123 

itself  on  the  minds  of  all  present  as  an  insepa- 
rable part  of  the  menial  office  which  he  ended 
with  discharging,  and  at  which  all  but  one 
were  struck  dumb. 

Upon  the  same  memorable  evening,  how 
manifest,  as  we  read  on  between  the  lines,  is 
the  reluctance  with  which  he  discloses  his  know- 
ledge of  the  meditated  treachery  of  one  of  their 
number !  That  their  faith  in  him  might  not  be 
shaken,  that  they  might  know  that  he  was  not 
going  to  be  taken  by  surprise,  that  he  was  pre- 
pared for  what  was  to  befall,  he  deemed  it  neces- 
sary that  he  should  tell  them  that  there  was  a 
traitor  among  them.  Twice  he  alluded  to  it, 
more  pointedly  the  second  time  than  the  first. 
At  last,  in  agitation  and  distress  of  mind,  he 
said  outright  that  one  of  them  was  about  to 
prove  false  to  him.  He  mentioned  no  name. 
Only  in  a  whisper  to  John,  who  leaned  on  his 
bosom,  did  he  point  out  the  traitor,  but  not 
then  by  name,  but  by  a  sign,  lest  the  others, 
who  were  watching  him,  might  catch  the  name 
from  the  motion  of  his  lips. 

Again.  What  a  world  of  faith  and  reverence 
is  revealed  in  the  cry,  '■''Lord,  is  it  J.?"  that  broke 


124  THE   RAISING   OF   LAZARUS. 

forth  all  around  the  table,  when  he  made  this 
communication  !  Innocent  of  any  thought  of 
treachery  as  all  but  one  of  them  were  conscious 
of  being,  their  instant  conviction  was  that  their 
Master  knew  them  better  than  they  knew  them- 
selves, and  that  they  might  be  guilty  of  the 
black  crime  sooner  than  he  could  bring  against 
them  a  groundless  accusation. 

The  Raising  of  Lazarus. 

In  the  narrative  of  the  Raising  of  Lazarus, 
there  is  nothing  said  of  the  immediate  effect  of 
the  wonder  upon  the  spectators.  But  when  it 
is  stated  that  at  the  appearance  of  the  man 
alive  at  the  entrance  of  the  sepulchre,  Jesus 
said,  "  Loosen  him,  that  he  may  walk,"  we  read 
between  the  lines  that  all  present  were  stand- 
ing, transfixed  with  amazement,  motionless  as 
statues,  staring  with  eyes  starting  from  their 
sockets  at  the  blindfolded  apparition  staggering 
in  the  voluminous  folds  of  the  shroud,  till  Jesus 
broke  the  spell  by  bidding  them  go  to  the  assist- 
ance of  his  risen  friend. 

In  the  same  wonderful  narrative,  wonderful 
not  only  for  the  extraordinary  event  which  it 


THE   RAISING   OF   LAZARUS.  125 

relates,  but  for  the  inimitable  marks  of  truth 
and  of  nature  with  which  it  is  inlaid,  when  it  is 
said  that  Jesus  called  with  a  loud  voice  to  the 
dead  man  to  come  forth,  I  read  as  plainly  as  if 
it  were  written  in  visible  characters,  that  Jesus 
called  thus  aloud  in  perfect  faith,  that  is,  he 
called  with  a  loud  voice,  believing,  knowing, 
that  the  dead  would  hear  him. 

As  in  death  all  signs  of  life  cognizable  to  our 
limited  vision,  which  perceives  only  the  surfaces 
of  things,  disappear,  we  rashly  assume  that  death 
is  absolute  extinction.  But  w^e  do  not  know 
either  what  death  is  or  life,  or  to  what  extent 
the  one  is  affected  by  the  other.  Neither  do  we 
know  what  hidden  sympathies  there  may  be  be- 
tween the  living  and  the  dead,  especially  when 
the  living  and  the  dead  are  bound  together  by 
the  ties  of  such  a  friendship  as  united  Jesus  and 
Lazarus. 

Were  we  only  penetrated  with  a  due  sense  of 
our  very  limited  knowledge,  we  might  be  ready 
to  confess  that  death  is  an  unsolved  secret,  and 
be  in  no  haste  to  pronounce  incredible  the  in- 
stances of  the  dead  recalled  to  life  recorded  in 

the  Gospels.     We  might  be  induced  to  ponder 
11* 


126  THE   RAISING   OF   LAZARUS. 

them  thoughtfully.  We  could  hardly  fall  to  be 
impressed  by  the  simple,  direct  manner  of  Jesus 
in  working  these  wonders,  in  consummate  har- 
mony as  it  is  with  the  perfect  dignity  of  his 
character,  and  with  the  inimitable  simplicity  of 
nature  as  well. 

I  cannot  but  think  that,  if  the  story  of  the 
Raising  of  Lazarus  were  a  fiction,  the  creation 
of  the  love  of  the  wonderful,  he  who  recalled  the 
dead  to  life  would  hardly  have  been  represented 
as  requiring  the  aid  of  human  hands  to  remove 
the  stone  from  the  sepulchre,  nor  would  the  dead 
man  have  been  described  as  instantly  needing 
assistance  upon  his  appearance  alive. 

Duly  appreciating  the  internal  evidences  of 
the  truth  of  these  narratives  of  the  dead  restored 
to  life  by  Christ,  we  might  obtain  some  insight 
into  what  death  is,  and  accept  these  facts  as  de- 
cisive proof  that  there  is  a  life  hidden  in  the 
mortal  body,  which  that  mysterious  change  can- 
not harm,  and  which,  under  the  conditions  that 
existed  in  the  cases  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  can, 
for  a  period  more  or  less  limited,  regain  its  com- 
mand over  the  body  and  revive  it. 

The  notices  of  the  sisters  of  Lazarus,  Martha 


MARTHA   AND   MARY.  127 

and  Mary,  in  the  narrative  of  their  brother's 
restoration,  are  wonderfully  in  harmony  with 
what  is  related  of  them  elsewhere  in  the  Gospels. 
They  are  nowhere  described.  It  is  nowhere 
said  what  manner  of  persons  they  were.  Only 
one  or  two  slight  incidents,  in  which  they  are 
the  actors,  are  related.  And  yet,  reading  be- 
tween the  lines,  we  get  from  those  incidents 
ideas  of  the  respective  characters  of  these  two 
women  as  distinct  as  if  we  were  personally  ac- 
quainted with  them. 

And  here  I  must  repeat  what  I  have  said 
about  them  more  than  once  before.  The  interest 
of  the  subject  is  my  apology. 

Martha  was  the  first  to  go  and  meet  Jesus 
when  she  heard  he  was  coming,  because,  "  cum- 
bered with  much  serving,"  she  was  in  that  part 
of  the  house  where  the  intelligence  of  his  ap- 
proach would  be  first  received.  Mary  was  in  a 
retired  room  indulging  her  grief,  as  her  charac- 
teristic sensibility  prompted,  and  the  custom  of 
the  time  allowed.  Martha  could  not  have  for- 
gotten her  sister,  but  she  neither  went  nor  sent 
to  let  Mary  know  that  Jesus  was  at  hand.  She 
started  ofi*  by  herself  to  meet  him.     And  it  is  so 


128  MARTHA   AND   MARY. 

in  character  with  the  jealousy  of  her  sister  shown 
on  the  only  other  occasion  in  which  she  appears 
in  the  history,  that  we  may  naturally  surmise 
that  she  went  off  by  herself  without  a  word  to 
her  sister,  whose  reverence  for  Jesus  she  well 
knew,  that  she  might  have  him  all  to  herself 
without  Mary  by.  When  Jesus  was  with  them 
and  Mary  was  present,  conversing  with  him  as 
Martha  could  not,  the  practical,  matter-of-fact 
character  of  Martha  authorises  the  suspicion  that 
she  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  of  inferiority, 
especially  if  she  were  the  elder.  Whether  older 
than  Mary  or  not,  she  was  probably  accustomed, 
by  virtue  of  her  practical  temperament,  and 
Mary's  indifference  to  household  cares,  to  take 
the  lead  in  domestic  concerns,  and,  therefore, 
it  was  not  agreeable  to  her,  especially  when 
guests  were  in  the  house,  to  appear  to  occupy 
a  subordinate  position.  She  had  not  liked  to 
see  Mary  sitting  still  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  while 
she  had  her  hands  full  of  work,  preparing,  as 
he  told  her,  more  than  enough,  for  the  table.  I 
suppose  if  Mary  had  been  bidden  by  Jesus  to 
help  Martha,  Martha  would  only  have  found  her 
in  the  way. 


MARTHA.  129 

When  Martha  met  Jesus,  how  plainly  is  it  writ 
between  the  lines  that  she  was  wholly  unable  to 
sustain  any  conversation  with  him  !  Everything 
he  said  staggered  her.  She  could  not  take  in 
what  he  said.  "When  he  told  her  her  brother 
would  rise  again,  she  shrank  from  the  idea,  and 
sought  relief  from  so  great  a  thought  in  her  tra- 
ditional faith  in  the  final  resurrection.  And  when 
he  went  on  to  say  (in  those  profoundly  significant 
words)  that  he  was  the  resurrection  and  the  life, 
and,  virtually,  that  her  brother,  though  dead,  yet 
having  had  faith  in  him,  still  lived,  and  that  she 
herself,  living  and  believing  in  him,  would  never 
die,  and  then  demanded  of  her  whether  she  be- 
lieved this,  again,  confounded  by  the  new,  great 
thoughts  that  he  presented,  she  took  refuge  in  a 
general  confession  of  faith  in  him  as  the  Mes- 
siah,— and  retreated.  Do  we  not  read,  though 
it  is  not  written  in  so  many  words,  that  he 
startled  and  overpowered  her?  He  was  too 
much  for  her.  She  could  not  talk  with  him. 
She  left  his  presence,  and  went  and  told  Mary 
that  Jesus  had  come,  and  that  she  was  wanted. 
Mary  would  understand  him,  she  could  not.  So 
she  was  forced  to  feel;  and  the  virtual  confes- 


130  MARTHA   AND   MARY. 

sion  of  her  incompetency  which  she  had  to  make 
in  having  to  call  Mary,  could  not,  chagrined 
as  she  was,  he  uttered  aloud.  And  therefore 
it  was  that  she  spoke  to  Mary  "  secretly, ^^  in  a 
whisper. 

Again  we  read  Martha's  nature  in  the  objec- 
tion she  interposed  to  the  removal  of  the  stone 
from  the  tomb, — as  if  Jesus  did  not  know  what 
he  was  doing.  Mary's  silence  speaks,  and  tells 
us  more  significantly  than  any  words  what  man- 
ner of  person  she  was. 

iN'ever,  in  any  work  of  fiction,  with  strokes  so 
few  and  delicate,  has  personal  character  been  so 
exquisitely  and  yet  incidentally  portrayed.  In 
the  same  way  the  distinctive  features  of  Peter 
and  Pilate  are  rendered  as  recognizable  as  those 
of  familiar  personal  acquaintances. 

The  friendship  subsisting  between  Jesus  and 
the  family  of  Lazarus  is  a  fact  of  no  slight  in- 
terest, bearing  witness  as  it  does  to  the  large  and 
liberal  spirit  of  Jesus.  Devoted  heart  and  soul 
to  his  great  work,  naturally  eager  as  he  must 
have  been  to  obtain  fellow-workers,  he  was  no 
zealot,  insisting  upon  adhesion  to  himself  as  the 
indispensable   condition  of  his  personal  friend- 


THE   SILENCE   OF   JESUS.  131 

ship.  He  warned  all  who  would  join  him  to 
count  the  cost.  He  had  friends,  it  appears,  in 
private  life  who  took  no  public  part  with  him. 
He  was  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not  given 
to  every  one  to  share  in  his  labors  and  sacrifices. 

The  Silence  of  Jesus. 

In  the  silence  which  Jesus  preserved  when 
arraigned  before  the  Roman  governor,  and  the 
Priests  were  clamoring  for  his  crucifixion,  when 
not  a  word  of  fear,  not  an  ejaculation  for  mercy, 
not  a  syllable  of  self-exculpation  was  breathed 
from  his  lips, — in  his  demeanor  in  those  awful 
circumstances  I  read  a  great  deal  more  than  a 
lamb-like  submission  to  slaughter.  I  behold  a 
conscious  rectitude,  a  pride  of  virtue,  a  royal 
greatness  of  mind,  with  which  the  annals  of 
mankind  may  be  challenged  to  produce  a  par- 
allel. 

Alone,  with  not  a  soul  in  all  the  world  that  un- 
derstood him,  defamed,  ridiculed,  denounced  as 
the  enemy  of  God  and  of  man,  with  savage  big- 
otry and  hate  raging  against  him,  he  stood  there, 
wrapt  around  in  the  robes  of  angelic  innocence 
and  truth.   He  could  not  descend  to  bandy  words 


132 

with  those,  whom  if  words  could  have  moved 
from  their  fell  purpose,  those  words  had  al- 
ready been  uttered.  Whatever  he  could  have 
said  then  would  only  exasperate  their  malice. 
His  blood  was  the  only  answer  that  remained  to 
be  given  to  their  calumnies,  and  that  answer 
centuries  were  to  accept  as  his  triumphant  vin- 
dication. For  that  supreme  moment,  silent  com- 
munion with  himself  and  with  the  Infinite  Father 
was  alone  fitted. 

Oh,  it  is  not  for  any  words  that  he  spoke,  sur- 
passingly wise  as  these  are,  it  is  for  his  bearing, 
more  divinely  glorious  than  any  aureole  could 
symbolize,  then,  and  always,  that  we  are  moved 
to  exclaim,  in  revering  admiration,  "  Truly,  this 
is  the  Son  of  God  !" 

Baptism  and  the  Lord^s  Supper. 

Reading  always,  not  only  what  is  written,  but 
what  is  plainly  legible  between  the  lines,  we 
gather  from  the  Gospels  that  Christ  instituted 
no  peculiar  forms  of  doctrine  or  of  observance, 
neither  a  creed  nor  a  ritual. 

We  have,  it  is  true,  our  so-called  Christian 
Institutions,  accepted   as   resting  upon   his  ex- 


BAPTISM.  133 

plicit  authority  by  all  denominations,  except  the 
Friends  :  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper. 

Baptism  was  a  rite  familiar  to  the  countrymen 
of  Jesus  before  he  appeared.  He  observed  it  him- 
self, but  he  never  baptised  any  one  (John  iv,  2). 
Had  he  designed  it  to  be  what  it  is  now  accounted, 
a  necessary,  initiatory  ceremony,  it  is  incredible 
that  there  should  be  no  mention  of  any  such  pur- 
pose either  in  the  third  or  the  fourth  Gospel,  and 
that  in  the  first  and  second  Gospels  he  is  said  only 
once  in  each  to  have  enjoined  its  observance, 
and  that  briefly  and  at  the  very  last.  His  disci- 
ples baptised,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was 
in  obedience  to  any  injunction  of  his.  In  the 
particular  instructions  (Matth.  x,)  which  he  gave 
them  when  he  sent  them  forth  to  herald  the  glad 
tidings,  there  is  no  word  about  Baptism. 

These  things  being  considered,  it  is  much  more 
probable  that  the  command  to  baptise,  recorded 
only  once  in  the  final  verses  of  Matthew  and 
Mark,  crept  into  the  text  from  the  margin  of 
some  early  copy  of  those  Gospels,  than  that  it 
should  have  been  really  given  by  Christ. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  before  the  manu- 
facture of  copies  of  the  Gospel  narratives  passed 

12 


134  BAPTISM. 

into  the  hands  of  professional  and  paid  tran- 
scribers, the  first  copies  that  were  made  were  made 
in  all  probability  by  individuals  for  themselves  or 
for  their  friends  (as  Luke  wrote  his  Gospel  for 
his  friend  Theophilus),  not  mechanically,  but  with 
the  liveliest  interest  in  their  contents,  prompt- 
ing them  occasionally  to  put  a  word  or  two,  here 
and  there,  in  the  margin,  by  way  of  comment  or 
explanation;  and  then,  when  other  copies  were 
made  from  theirs,  these  marginal  notes  would  be 
apt  to  be  transferred  into  the  text,  with  no  ill  de- 
sign, but  under  the  impression  that  they  belonged 
there  and  had  been  omitted  through  carelessness. 
This  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  Biblical  critics 
account  for  certain  probable  corruptions  of  the 
text.  Indeed,  the  last  twelve  verses  of  the  sec- 
ond Gospel,  which  include  the  mention  of  Bap- 
tism, are  of  doubtful  genuineness,  and  they  are 
so  indicated  in  the  Revised  Version  of  the  E"ew 
Testament. 

If,  however,  Christ  enjoined  Baptism,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether,  in  the  passages  where 
alone  it  is  mentioned,  he  is  to  be  taken  to  the 
letter,  or  figuratively,  that  is,  as  he  used  the 
word  when  he  said  he  had  a  baptism  to  suffer, 


BAPTISM.  135 

and  again,  when  he  asked  James  and  John  if 
they  were  prepared,  with  him,  for  the  same  bap- 
tism. It  was  in  the  same  figurative  sense  that  his 
Precursor,  the  Baptist,  used  the  word  when  he 
said  to  the  people  that  he  baptised  them  with 
water,  but  that  there  was  one  coming  mightier 
than  he,  who  would  baptise  them  with  the  holy 
spirit  and  with  fire.  Water,  that  cleanses  only 
outwardly,  was  the  symbol  of  the  Baptist's  influ- 
ence. But  the  power  of  him  who  was  about  to 
appear  would  be  signified  by  more  searching 
elements,  spirit  and  fire.  [It  is  impossible  to 
convey  in  any  one  English  word  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  Greek  word  izveuim^  here  translated 
S'pirii.  It  is  expressive  of  the  power  as  well  as 
of  the  subtil ty  of  Air.  In  one  and  the  same 
verse  (John  iii,  8)  it  is  translated  both  wind  and 
spirit :  ^'  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  .  .  . 
so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  spiriC'}  The 
Baptist,  who  held  Jesus  in  the  deepest  rever- 
ence, as  appears  from  his  not  thinking  himself 
worthy  to  baptise  him,  spoke,  I  doubt  not,  from 
personal  experience  when  he  said  that  Jesus 
would  baptise  with  the  spirit  and  with  fire.  To 
Jesus,  I  believe,  he  referred  when  he  spoke  of 


136  THE  lord's  supper. 

him  who  was  coming.  He  had  felt  the  power  of 
Jesus.  In  previous  communings  with  his  great 
kinsman  he  had  experience  of  a  spiritual  and 
kindling  baptism.  Such  and  no  outward  rite 
was  the  Baptism  that  Jesus  sent  forth  his  Apos- 
tles to  administer.  Certain  it  is  that  Paul  did 
not  consider  himself  required  to  baptise  with 
water,  although  commissioned  directly  by  Christ 
himself.  He  thanked  God  that  he  had  baptised 
only  two  or  three  persons  in  Corinth  (1  Cor. 

i,  17). 

Of  the  Lord's  Supper  so  called,  no  mention 
is  made  in  the  fourth  Gospel;  and  this  Gospel 
is  ascribed  to  the  beloved  disciple.  In  the  first 
and  second  Gospels,  there  is  not  a  syllable  inti- 
mating a  thought  on  Christ's  part  of  instituting 
a  commemorative  rite.  In  Luke  only  we  have 
the  words,  '-^Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me,''  Were 
the  observance  of  the  essential  importance  as- 
cribed to  it,  it  is  not  credible  that  so  slight  a 
ground  should  exist  for  it.  Considering  the 
silence  of  the  other  Gospels  on  this  point,  and 
how  needless  any  express  injunction  to  a  special 
remembrance  of  him  was  subsequently  proved 
to  be,  since  a  commemorative  observance  sprang 


137 

up  by  the  pure  force  of  nature,  of  itself,  as  it 
were,  and  took  form  from  the  striking  incident 
of  his  last  supper  with  his  disciples,  we  may  well 
conclude  that,  arising  so  naturally,  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  the  observance  must  have  been 
expressly  enjoined  by  Christ;  and  thus  the  words 
in  Luke,  written  first,  probably,  in  the  margin 
of  some  copy,  passed  into  the  text  of  subsequent 
MSS. 

After  the  disappearance  of  their  Master,  when- 
ever the  disciples  met  to  eat  and  drink  together, 
they  could  not  fail  to  recall  those  remarkable 
words  of  his  about  the  bread  and  wine  on  the 
occasion  of  their  last  meal  with  him.  Thus, 
not  by  convention  nor  by  formal  institution,  but 
like  all  observances  that  have  life  in  them,  "  out 
from  the  heart  of  N^ature"  sprang  our  Memorial 
Service. 

So,  in  the  same  way,  the  first  day  of  the  week 
grew  to  be  commemorative  of  the  greatest  event 
in  the  history  of  Christ,  his  Eesurrection,  and 
became  a  formal  service,  instituted  by  I^ature, 
and  entitled  the  Master's  or  Lord's  day. 

Jesus  himself,  I  conceive,  had  as  little  thought 

of  instituting  the  Lord's  Supper  as  he  had  of 
12* 


138 

making  the  first  day  of  the  week  a  day  to  be  set 
apart  and  formally  observed.  The  occasion  of  his 
last  supper  with  his  humble  friends  was  an  occa- 
sion of  the  deepest  emotion  to  him.  He  knew 
that  it  was  the  last.  His  awful  fate  was  on  the 
eve  of  its  consummation.  Images  of  the  near 
horror  rose  w^ith  appalling  effect  before  his  mind. 
So  vividly  did  the  broken  bread  and  the  flowing 
red  wine  call  up  before  him  his  lacerated  body 
and  streaming  blood,  that  the  signs  vanished 
from  his  sight  before  the  things  signified,  and, 
shocked  to  the  last  degree,  he  exclaimed,  "  It  is 
my  body !"  "  It  is  my  blood !"  He  could  not 
drink  of  the  wine,  nor  eat  of  the  bread.  It 
would  be  drinking  his  own  blood,  eating  his 
own  fiesh.  His  was  no  state  of  mind  for  the 
institution  of  a  formal  ceremony. 

I  am  misunderstood  if  it  is  inferred  from  what 
I  say  that  I  would  abolish  our  Christian  Com- 
memorative Service.  On  the  contrary,  I  would 
have  it  seen  that  it  rests,  not  on  the  ground  of 
formal  institution,  but  upon  the  strongest  pos- 
sible ground  of  I^Tature. 

As  to  the  manner  in  which,  and  the  frequency 
with  which,  it  should  be  kept,  these  are  open 


JESUS   INSTITUTED   NO   FORMS.  139 

questions  to  be  decided  by  the  spirit  of  the  time. 
It  appears  that  at  the  first,  the  disciples  made 
every  occasion  when  they  met  to  eat  and  drink 
together,  commemorative  of  their  last  supper 
with  him. 

As  he  instituted  no  set  forms,  it  is  equally 
important  to  observe,  neither  did  he  forbid  any. 
He  neither  commanded  nor  forbade  his  disciples 
to  baptise.  If  at  any  time  the  observance  of 
a  baptismal  form  tends  to  deepen  the  sense  of 
personal  duty,  then  is  Baptism  a  Christian  ob- 
servance. 

Religious  institutions,  creeds,  and  ceremonials, 
mankind  always  have  had,  and  always  will  have, 
so  long  as  a  sense  of  religion  is  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  human  nature.  If  there  are  any  wear- 
ing the  human  shape  who  acknowledge  no 
Power  above  them,  and  are  conscious  of  no  sen- 
timent of  religious  faith  or  fear,  they  are,  as 
Hume  long  ago  said,  on  a  level  with  the  brutes. 
The  philosophers  of  our  day,  who  are  sounding 
the  deeps  of  human  knowledge  and  who  seem  to 
imagine  that  they  have  struck  bottom,  no  less 
than  the  most  devout  of  worshippers,  would  fain 


140  CHRISTIANITY. 

have,  as  it  now  appears,  their  ceremonials  and 
commemorative  services,  rivalling  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  the  multitude  of  their  Saints' 
days. 

Since  these  things  are  so,  since  such  is  the 
constitution  of  man,  and  there  will  forever  be 
forms  of  religion,  it  may  be  said  that  Christ 
left  all  such  things  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
He  neither  created  nor  forbade  any  peculiar 
religious  institutions.  It  was  no  purpose  of  his 
to  do  away  with  such  as  existed. 

A  Religion,  however,  sprang  from  him,  no 
creation  of  the  wisdom  of  man,  but  rooted  deep 
in  nature,  born  of  God.  Its  conception  was  im- 
maculate. It  is  clothed  with  the  highest  possible 
authority.  It  is  not  a  form,  but  a  life,  a  spirit,  a 
spirit  of  Love,  of  Liberty,  of  Power.  Countless 
are  the  errors  that  have  usurped  its  name  and 
clogged  its  progress.  But  it  lives,  pure  and  un- 
defiled,  in  Christ,  its  most  luminous  illustration. 
He  came,  as  he  said,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil, 
not  to  build  a  new  religion  upon  the  destruction 
of  the  old,  but  to  breathe  into  the  existing  re- 
ligion of  his  country  and  through  that  into  all 
the  world  the  spirit  of  his  own  broad  humanity. 


CHRISTIANITY.  141 

He  threw  the  whole  power  of  his  great  life  and 
death  into  the  supreme  love  of  the  Highest  and 
Best  and  the  fraternal  love  of  man.  Wherever 
these  are  the  all-commanding  affections,  he  the 
outward  forms  of  Religion  what  they  may, 
Christ  and  Christianity  do  not  condemn  those 
forms.  Baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  what- 
ever ohservances  minister  to  enlarge  the  heart 
towards  God  and  man,  are  all  Christian  institu- 
tions. 

Forms  of  theology  and  worship  that  educate 
the  highest  and  best  in  our  nature  will  be  as 
diverse  as  the  minds  of  men.  When  all  are 
striving  to  give  expression  to  one  and  the  same 
religious  sense,  and  by  expressing  to  strengthen 
it,  such  are  the  constitutional  differences  among 
men,  they  must  needs  adopt  different  modes 
of  thought  and  worship.  Were  it  otherwise, 
it  would  not  be  in  harmony  with  the  infinite 
variety  so  dear  to  the  Creator. 

There  is  then  the  peace  and  joy  of  a  divine 
charity  in  the  faith  in  which  we  may  rest,  that 
the  various  forms  of  religion  do  all  at  least  keep 
the  religious  sentiment  alive.  But  there  is  a 
deeper  peace  still,  a  greater  joy  in  the  faith  that 


142  NO   CLAIM   OF   NOVELTY. 

there  is  a  power  in  the  world,  the  spirit,  of  which 
Christ  is  our  divinest  symbol,  ever  present  as 
the  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere,  which  is  pene- 
trating and  moulding  them  all  in  various  de- 
grees, and  that  every  religion  outside  of  Chris- 
tendom as  well  as  within  its  pale  has  its  saints. 
The  growing  intercourse  of  Christian  and  non- 
Christian  peoples,  which  there  is  now  so  much 
to  facilitate,  the  treaties  made  between  them  in 
the  interests  of  civilisation,  abolishing  slavery, 
for  example,  bear  witness  to  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
breathing  a  deeper  life  into  the  world. 

It  is  only  when  creeds  and  rituals  are  exalted 
above  the  two  great  Commandments,  or  put  on 
a  level  with  them,  that  Christ  condemns  them. 
Then  we  hear  his  voice  reiterating  the  ancient 
immortal  word,  "  I  will  have  humanity  and  not 
sacrifice." 

I  HAVE  given  in  the  preceding  pages  some 
instances  of  the  way  in  which  the  Gospel  narra- 
tives are  to  be  read.  I  claim  no  novelty  for  the 
method  I  have  observed.  They  are  read  in  the 
same  way  by  all  who  endeavor  to  read  them 
understandingly  and  not  by  rote. 


CHRIST   PROFOUNDLY   HUMAN.  143 

It  has  been  objected  that  I  interpret  them  arbi- 
trarily, according  to  my  liking,  without  reference 
to  any  sound  principles  of  criticism.  I  can  only 
repeat  that  I  am  not  aware  of  having  resorted  to 
any  far-fetched  or  fanciful  suggestions.  By  the 
same  way  that  I  have  followed  in  exhibiting  the 
truth  contained  in  these  Writings,  certain  pas- 
sages are  found  to  be  legendary,  or  exaggera- 
tions of  ordinary  events,  such  as,  for  instance, 
the  story  of  the  !N"ativity,  the  Transfiguration,  and 
the  Storm  on  the  Lake. 

If  there  is  anything  peculiar  in  the  expositions 
which  I  have  given,  it  is  that  I  bring  more  fully 
into  view  than  is  commonly  done,  that  Christ 
was  a  human  being,  a  man,  susceptible  of  human 
emotions,  actuated  by  human  feelings.  This 
simple  fact,  when  once  it  is  taken  fully  into 
account,  will  make  the  history  as  luminous  in 
its  self-evidence  as  the  sun,  which  needs  no 
argument  of  its  reality. 

I  do  not  profess  to  be  able  to  set  forth  all  the 
internal  evidence,  whether  of  fact  or  of  fable, 
in  the  Gospels.  That  will  require  a  keener  eye 
than  mine.  But  so  far  as  I  have  come  to  know 
their   real  character,  I  have  found   them  most 


144  THE   GOSPELS   NATURAL. 

original  and  wonderful  in  this,  that  they  are  as 
pure  pieces  of  nature  as  any  things  in  nature,  as 
natural  as  the  trees  and  the  flowers.  They  are 
not  a  manufacture,  but  a  growth.  There  breathes 
through  them  the  same  Divine  Life  that  animates 
the  whole  creation. 

l^ature  abounds  in  marvels.  Among  them,  I 
hold  the  'New  Testament  histories  to  be  not  the 
least,  marvels  of  simplicity.  It  is  a  great  mis- 
take to  think  it  would  have  been  better  had  the 
accounts  of  Christ  been  written  by  educated  per- 
sons. The  more  simple-natured,  the  more  un- 
sophisticated their  authors,  the  easier  is  it  to 
divine  what  it  was  that  they  actually  saw  and 
felt.  1^0  arts  of  literary  composition  color  or 
refract  the  pure  light  of  human  nature  shining 
through  these  simple  narratives. 

Were  they  mere  human  fabrications,  they 
never  would  admit  of  being  harmonised  with 
the  truth  of  nature.  That  man  can  mix  artificial 
flowers  with  natural  ones, — interpolate  the  crude 
creations  of  his  ignorant  love  of  the  marvellous 
into  the  Divine  Order  of  the  world,  so  that  no 
eye  shall  be  able  to  see  the  diflPerence  between 
the  two,  is,  to  my  mind,  utterly  beyond  belief. 


CONCLUSION.  145 

Omchsion. 

We  must  set  no  limits  to  the  Infinite  Grace  of 
God.  The  prophecy  of  the  Apostle  will  he  ful- 
filled. As  God  lives,  the  time  must  come  when 
the  spirit  of  Christ  shall  have  suhdued  all  that  is 
hostile  to  it,  and  God  will  he  all  in  all.  l^o  eye 
hath  seen,  no  ear  heard,  no  heart  conceived,  what 
is  prepared  in  the  counsels  of  the  Infinite  Father 
for  his  human  family,  what  fuller  revelations 
will  he  made,  what  loftier  angels  will  appear 
with  the  messages  of  his  Love,  and  do  greater 
works  than  yet  have  been  done  or  imagined. 
Science,  as  well  as  Scripture,  inspires  the  faith 
that  ever  higher  forms  of  life  and  good  are  to  he 
evolved. 

The  time  is  not  yet.  Hardly  does  its  coming 
shine  even  from  afar.  Only  to  the  eye  of  faith 
is  it  visible.  For  the  redemption  of  a  world 
still  lying  in  ignorance  and  sin,  we  look  to  Him 
who  lived  and  died  and  rose  again  from  the  dead 
for  the  re-creation  of  mankind.  Already  has 
his  influence  been  realised  in  countless  redeem- 
ing agencies.     But  not  only  thus  indirectly,  but 

by  his  own  personal  power,  shall  he  yet  move  the 
18 


146  CONCLUSION. 

world.  That  power  is  far  from  being  spent.  He 
shall  come  again,  not  visibly  to  mortal  eyes,  not 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  but,  emerging  from  the 
blinding  mists  of  theological  and  legendary  the- 
ories, he  will  come,  in  the  all-subduing  power 
of  his  personal  character,  to  create  a  new  faith 
in  God  and  in  man. 

In  the  mean  while,  everywhere  now  sectarian 
distinctions  are  magnified,  and  creeds  and  rituals 
usurp  supremacy,  engendering  mutual  contempt 
and  hatred,  and  obstructing  the  genial  circulation 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  The  Church,  the  most 
venerable  for  its  age,  the  most  imposing  for  the 
grandeur  of  its  organization,  for  the  multitudes 
of  its  members,  and  for  the  illustrious  and  saintly 
characters  that  appear  within  its  pale,  takes  the 
lead  in  exalting  forms  and  traditions  above 
humanity  and  the  love  of  God,  sanctifying  the 
sprinkling  of  a  few  drops  of  water,  for  example, 
with  an  efficacy  so  sacred  that  only  by  the  ante- 
natal administration  of  the  rite  of  Baptism  are 
unborn  babes  to  be  saved  from  everlasting  per- 
dition. 

In  this  state  of  things  can  we  consent  to  suffer 
the  personality  of  Christ,  at  the  first  so  powerful, 


CONCLUSION.  147 

to  fade  away  into  a  fable  ?  For  ages  his  human 
person  has  been  all  but  lost,  through  the  distort- 
ing medium  of  dogmas  so  bewildering  to  the 
understanding,  so  powerless  to  reach  the  heart, 
that,  save  through  the  Crucifix  and  the  Madonna 
with  the  infant  Jesus,  hardly  a  glimpse  of  his 
divine  humanity  could  be  caught;  and  the  heart 
has  turned  to  the  Virgin  Mother  to  slake  its 
thirst  for  an  object  of  veneration  and  trust, 
that  appeals  to  those  sentiments  at  once  the 
most  universal  and  the  most  powerful  principles 
of  human  nature.  E"ow  that,  by  the  Grace  of 
God,  we  have  been  brought  to  reject  as  alike  ir- 
rational and  unscriptural  the  metaphysical  repre- 
sentations of  Christ  which  have  so  long  and  so 
widely  prevailed,  now,  in  fine,  that  we  see  what 
he  was  not,  shall  we  be  content  to  rest  in  this 
negative  conclusion  and  never  care  to  inquire 
what  he  positively  was  ?  Shall  we  be  willing  to 
remain  in  doubt  whether  his  existence  be  not  lost 
in  a  cloud  of  fable  ? 

If  there  were  no  other  inducement,  simple  cu- 
riosity, one  would  think,  should  prevent  us  from 
allowing  to  pass  into  neglect  and  oblivion  the 
memory  of  one  whose  appearance  in  the  world 


148  CONCLUSION. 

has  determined  the  whole  subsequent  course  of 
the  world's  history,  and  from  the  date  of  whose 
birth  the  most  advanced  nations  count  the  years, 
as  if  all  that  preceded  that  event  passed  for  noth- 
ing. Surely  it  could  have  been  no  fabulous  per- 
sonage— or  all  that  is,  is  a  delusion — whose  pres- 
ence in  the  world  has  had  these  consequences, 
no  ordinary  man,  the  representation  of  whom  as 
no  less  a  person  than  Almighty  God  himself  has 
been  and  still  is  received  as  credible. 

But  the  endeavor  to  ascertain  who  and  what 
Christ  was  has  a  far  higher  motive  than  the  grati- 
fication of  mere  curiosity.  In  the  name  of  all 
that  is  just,  generous,  honorable,  for  God's  sake 
and  for  man's,  let  us  not  forget  the  sacred  debt 
that  we  owe  to  Christ  himself.  Before  we  con- 
sent that  the  divine  Idea  of  him  shall  fade  away 
from  the  minds  of  men,  now  that  we  are  suffi- 
ciently enlightened  to  perceive  how  mournfully 
his  person  has  for  long  ages  been  misunder- 
stood, we  are  bound  to  see  to  it  that  justice  be 
done  to  him. 

When  this  is  done,  when  he  shall  be  known 
as  he  truly  was,  in  the  beauty  of  his  Life,  as 
human  as  it  is  Godlike,  blessed  will  be  the  re- 


CONCLUSION.  149 

suit.  The  world  shall  be  like  him  when  it  sees 
him  as  he  is.  Revered  as  the  realisation  of  the 
highest  idea  of  human  nature,  the  veneration, 
the  faith  in  God  and  man,  the  love,  the  hope, 
that  he  will  inspire,  will  prove  to  be,  far  more 
effectually  than  they  ever  yet  have  been  since 
the  Apostolic  age,  most  powerful  ministers  of 
Heaven  in  cleansing  and  renovating  mankind. 

As  these  sentiments  are  awakened,  as  men  are 
brought  to  see  in  him  the  Divinity  of  the  nature 
which  they  share  with  him  and  to  cherish  self- 
respect  and  the  sacred  feeling  of  human  respect, 
the  more  plainly  will  it  appear  that,  however 
numerous  and  strongly  marked  are  our  differ- 
ences of  language,  of  customs  and  manners,  and 
of  religion,  men  everywhere,  after  all,  are  more 
alike  than  different,  that  their  differences  strike 
us  as  great  because  they  are  on  the  surface, — in 
fine,  that  as  face  answers  to  face  in  a  mirror,  so 
does  the  inmost  heart  of  man  to  man. 

And  the  means  of  human  intercourse,  now  in 
ceaseless  and  increasing  activity,  and  powerful 
beyond  the  dreams  of  the  boldest  imagination 
less  than  a  century  ago,  are  bringing  men  face 
to  face,  every  man  to  see  himself  in  his  brother, 


150  CONCLUSION. 

and  to  labor  together  for  the  common  welfare 
of  mankind. 

As  mutual  knowledge  and  respect  increase, 
differences,  now  unduly  magnified,  and  which 
only  generate  ill  blood, — all,  in  short,  that  is  not 
rooted  in  truth  and  nature,  will  wither  away.  It 
will  not  be  plucked  up  by  violence,  by  hands 
bathed  in  blood,  as  some  madly  dream,  neither 
will  it  be  out-argued.  It  will  be  outgrown.  As 
in  the  case  of  the  personal  disciples  of  Christ, 
the  wheat.  Heaven-sown  and  fostered  by  the 
fruitful  influences  of  Providence  and  of  IN'ature, 
will  choke  the  tares. 

Of  this,  the  Divine  method  in  the  regenera- 
tion alike  of  the  individual  and  of  the  world  at 
large,  what  an  impressive  instance  have  we  had 
in  the  history,  in  this  country,  of  the  sacred 
Cause  of  Justice  and  Humanity,  in  which  the 
well-being,  not  of  one  race  or  class,  but  of  all 
mankind,  was  involved,  as,  for  thirty  years,  it 
was  steadily  winning  its  way  till  the  crisis  came  ! 
As  individuals  of  different  religious  names  be- 
came interested  in  it,  how  soon  were  religious 
differences  ignored,  and  with  what  mutual  con- 
fidence did  believers  and  unbelievers,  so  called. 


CONCLUSION.  151 

work  together  as  brothers !  Thus  it  has  always 
been  when  any  great  vital  issues  were  in  ques- 
tion, when  any  deep  feeling  has  stirred  the 
minds  of  men.  At  the  height  of  the  great 
plague  in  the  seventeenth  century  in  London, 
the  flood  of  one  common  fear  submerged  all 
sectarian  distinctions,  and  the  people  rushed  to 
implore  the  mercy  of  Heaven  into  the  churches, 
regardless  of  the  religious  names  the  churches 
bore.  So  here,  all  thoughts  of  religious  differ- 
ences were  swept  away  when  the  Spirit  of  Free- 
dom and  Humanity  began  to  overflow  the  land. 
As  it  has  been,  so  will  it  be.  All  hearts  are 
fashioned  alike,  and,  notwithstanding  all  differ- 
ences of  forms  of  faith  and  worship,  all  shall 
become  one  in  Christ.  What  is  the  chaff  to 
the  wheat  ?  saith  the  Lord. 


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